Fieldfare Welfare: Wintering Thrush Conservation

Key Welfare Considerations

• Fieldfares arrive in the UK from Scandinavia in autumn, forming large flocks in hedgerows and farmland.
• Key welfare threats include loss of berry-bearing hedgerows, harsh winters with reduced food availability, and agricultural intensification.
• Fieldfares depend heavily on hawthorn, holly, and rowan berries during early winter.
• When berry crops fail, fieldfares resort to worm and invertebrate foraging, requiring unfrozen ground.
• Severe cold snaps cause significant mortality when food resources are depleted.
• Flock foraging behaviour provides safety from predators and welfare benefits through social thermoregulation.
• Agricultural practices reducing hedgerow cover directly diminish fieldfare winter survival.
• Garden feeding with windfall apples and berries provides critical supplementary nutrition.
• Fieldfares are red-listed in the UK as a breeding bird, though winter numbers remain high.
• Climate change affects migration timing and berry crop availability, creating welfare mismatches.
• Lead poisoning from shot game and contaminated soil poses a welfare risk to fieldfares.
• Pesticide use on farmland reduces invertebrate prey during cold spells when berries are depleted.
• Conservation grazing management that maintains diverse hedgerow structure benefits fieldfares.
• Coordinated farm wildlife schemes providing berry-rich field margins improve winter survival.
• Community orchards and retained windfall fruit on farmland provide critical late-winter welfare support.