It is almost a week since I first spotted our newest visitor to the garden. It has been quite difficult to catch on film despite it being large enough to see. It bounces and runs along the ground so quickly appearing out from the cover of plants only for short periods. The Blackbirds have given it a cursory chase off – but not in the same way as they do each other. This new visitor is shy, has long legs and reminds me of a ballet dancer in Swan Lake.

Song Thrush in garden, video 0:42with background music, try 480p quality.

The Song Thrush, shown above, is what I believe or latest visitor to be. It is definitely a lot smaller than the Blackbird and browner than the Mistle Thrush. Its spots, I would say, look more like upside down hearts where the Mistle Thrush has much rounder spots. It was only when I had it on film and I was able to look at still shots to see this properly.

Sultanas for the Song Thrush, a favourite food in my garden, scattered on the ground around the base of my plants. I put them out for the Blackbirds but the Starlings are also partial to more than a few! I also put sultanas on my small ground feeder, shown above, and the Song Thrush will now make a brief dash out to it – then back into the relative safety of the plants to eat it. You will see from the film above that when it has cover it stays a little longer. Maybe when it sees so many other birds feeding on the ground it will get braver or it just may occur to it that if it doesn’t come out from hiding the sultanas will be gone! I hope it doesn’t go and continues to be a regular visitor – it is such a pretty bird to watch.

The video, shown above, was taken in my garden on March 17th 2007.