This fieldfare was photographed at Munson Pond on Jan. 10.
Image Credit: Submitted/Chris Charlesworth
January 17, 2023 - 10:32 AM
When Kelowna birder Chris Charlesworth was told by a friend that a bird rarely seen in B.C. had been spotted at Munson Pond, he headed right over.
He was able to capture a photo of the rarely seen fieldfare at the pond on Jan. 10, but it wasn’t there the next day, so he had to range further afield to try to spot it again.
So how did he find a bird that was a kilometre or two away from Munson Pond?
“I just drove around in nearby neighbourhoods that had lots of mountain ash berries,” Charlesworth told iNFOnews.ca today, Jan. 17. “This one neighbourhood had a couple hundred robins in it. I thought that was a good bet so I hung out there for a bit and there it was."
That was at the corner of Morrison Avenue and Rhondda Crescent, near Guisachan Heritage Park and about 2.8 km away from Munson Pond.
The fieldfare is native to Europe and Asia and migrates south to warmer climes in the winter. It has only been spotted in B.C. twice before. Once was in Salmon Arm in 2019 and the other time was in Port Coquitlam some years ago.
“He got lost, this one,” Charlesworth said. “It could have had something to do with a big weather event that blows a bird off course. Or, it may have faulty wiring in his brain for migration and he didn’t go where he was supposed to go.”
At one point there were 30 to 40 birders gathered around the Morrison Avenue area and others were making plans to travel to Kelowna from other provinces and the U.S. to try to get a glimpse of the bird.
This is the same bird photographed Jan. 12 along Morrison Avenue near Rhondda Cres.
Image Credit: Submitted/Blair Dudeck
It hasn't been spotted for four days and if it shows up again it could stay around through February and into March. Even if the chances of spotting the bird are low some birders will travel to Kelowna.
“It depends on what type of birder you are,” Charlesworth said. “Some are happy to see whatever comes their way and some are real listers, they want to get all these rare birds on their lists so they will travel sometimes a fair distance to get a new one on their list.”
The fieldfare was first spotted by Jasmine Korcok who called Charlesworth, the owner of Avocet Tours that specializes in bird watching expeditions and word quickly spread.
The fieldfare, like robins and thrushes, love mountain ash berries. Kelowna had a bumper crop of the berries this year so there have been thousands of robins around. Some years there are hardly any robins when the berry crop is poor.
Those berries also attracted a record number of Bohemian waxwings to the city during the annual Christmas bird count last month.
READ MORE: Bird lovers now counting their feathered friends at Christmas rather than killing them
It’s highly unlikely the fieldfare will ever make it back to where they belong. It may travel with the robins for awhile.
“He might migrate a bit, go further north and come back south in the winter,” Charlesworth said. “You never know, he might show up again next winter. Chances are he’s not going to find a mate, that’s for sure.”
The website eBird describes the fieldfare as a “rather large, subtly attractive thrush with blue-gray head, dark chestnut-brown back, gray rump, and variable peachy-buff wash on a spotted breast.”
It’s found mainly in open woodland, farmland with hedges and orchards.
“The song is relatively unlovely for a thrush, a series of scratchy and garbled phrases,” eBird says. “The call is a dry and powerful ‘chakchak,’ rather like an old camera.”
Its habitat is shown as mostly being in Northern Europe down to the Mediterranean and scattering into Central Asia.
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