Defender

Every day during this cold spell, I leave out about 20 large Bramleys for the birds.  We had such a huge apple harvest that we still have hundreds that will rot if not used.  About 10 blackbirds and 5 fieldfares  are regularly feeding and fighting for ownership.  At first, the fieldfares seemed to be the more aggressive, but the blackbirds are now equally so.  The odd magpie drops in for a bite and this puts manners on all the combatants. This Mistle thrush arrived this morning and held its ground against all blackbirds and fieldfares. 

One fieldfare attempted to maintain a no-go area of 2 to 3 metres around its chosen apple, darting at any bird that came within the bounds; because of the number of intruders it managed to take just a few bites of its chosen apple during the 15 to 20 minutes that I was observing it.