mistle thrush

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."

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.

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.

Mae adar hefyd yn falch o aeron yr eiddew 'radeg yma o'r flwyddyn ac mae brych y coed (mistle thrush) yn falch iawn o unrhyw aeron o'r uchelwydd sy'n weddill, ac yn eu tro yn help garw i wasgaru had yr uchelwydd.

| ||RESTING THEIR WINGS: Left, a redwing and a mistle thrush. Above, a speckled wood butterfly.

Among them grey heron and little egret, great black-backed gull and black-headed gull, great spotted woodpecker, blackcap and whitethroat, song thrush and mistle thrush, and yellowhammer and reed bunting.

The latest species to face a dim, dodolike future is the once-chirpy mistle thrush. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says numbers of the spotty breasted, fluffy birds have declined rapidly.