Redwing

The Redwing is the smallest of the regularly occurring European thrushes, a northern breeder that becomes a familiar winter visitor to farmland and gardens further south, often arriving in large, vocal flocks, frequently traveling and feeding alongside Fieldfares.

Appearance

It has brown upperparts and a streaked, rather than spotted, buffy-white breast, with a bold, creamy-white supercilium (eyebrow stripe) that is the species' most distinctive field mark. The flanks and underwing coverts glow a warm rust-red to orange, giving the bird its common name.

Key Field Marks

• Bold, creamy-white supercilium above a dark cheek patch
• Red-orange flanks and underwing coverts
• Streaked (not spotted) buffy breast
• Smallest of the common European thrushes

Similar Species

Song Thrush lacks the bold pale eyebrow and red flanks, instead showing dense dark spotting and orange-buff underwings only. Fieldfare is much larger with a grey head and rump and chestnut back. The Redwing's small size, prominent eyebrow stripe, and rusty flanks are unmistakable with reasonable views.

Habitat and Range

Redwings breed in birch woodland, scrubby taiga, and mixed forest across Iceland, Scandinavia, and much of northern Russia and Siberia. Outside the breeding season they winter widely across temperate Europe, favoring farmland with hedgerows, orchards, and berry-bearing shrubs, as well as gardens and parks, particularly in hard weather.

Migration

The species is strongly migratory, moving south and west in large numbers each autumn, often traveling at night — flight calls can frequently be heard overhead on clear autumn and winter nights as flocks pass over.

Behavior

Redwings are highly social outside the breeding season, forming large, often mixed flocks with Fieldfares that move together across farmland and hedgerows searching for berries and, when the ground is unfrozen, probing for earthworms and invertebrates.

Voice

The flight call, a thin, high-pitched "seeih," is distinctive and frequently heard from migrating flocks, including at night. The breeding song, heard on northern breeding grounds, is a simple, repetitive series of fluty notes.

Nesting and Breeding

Nests are built in birch, willow, or low conifers, sometimes on the ground in far northern areas, a cup of grass, moss, and mud. The female lays 4-6 eggs and incubates them for about 12-13 days; this stage is rarely witnessed away from the remote northern breeding range.