Mistle

The herring gull is on the "red list" of conservation concern, as are the curlew and mistle thrush because of a decline in numbers, while others are on the amber list.

The hoopoe - which has a pinkish-brown body, downcurved bill and weighs in at about the same size as a mistle thrush - showed up in Cwmbach this week, a long way off its usual flight path.

Both the song thrush and the larger mistle thrush fall into this category - I have rarely seen a thrush in the garden, but in Pollok park both types of thrush are quite abundant.

A Mistle Thrush bolt upright struts, he's king of his domain.

"From the frogs in ponds to the honey bees finding nectar in the last of the snowdrops, the powerful songster - the mistle thrush - pronouncing its presence from the very top of the tallest tree, to hungry badgers excavating lawns searching for grubs and juicy plant roots."

* Candy Cane (female) and Mistle Toe (male) are two 10-week-old tan Chihuahua/Minpin puppies that came from a home that had too many animals.

Last year included a new species for the entire Christmas Bird Count database: a Mistle Thrush representing the first ever appearance of that species in North America.

Closer to my home, I watched a mistle thrush standing by a bus stop in Kings Norton recently, before it made off as a person approached.

This leaves us with our mistle and song thrushes, most of which live here throughout the year.

By using local seed stock and innovative propagation techniques, the trust and Forestry Commission hope to give nature a helping hand, with the measures favouring declining bird species such as dunnock, mistle thrush, song thrush, tree pipit, woodcock and black grouse.

Of these Scandinavian thrushes, the larger fieldfares are comparable in both size and nature with our mistle thrushes but with grey heads and grey rumps, whilst the smaller redwings are about the same size as our song thrushes.