Black Mountains birds

On a day when the wind blew cold, you might not have expected there to be much in the way of bird life on the summits of the Black Mountains. This may have been the case, but the slopes of the ridges were full of birds.
Fieldfares and redwings abounded, though there was a clear demarcation between the two species. The redwings were feasting upon the hawthorn berries on the lower slopes, whilst the haws on the upper slopes were exclusively depleted by the larger fieldfares. It may be that the larger thrushes are more capable of surviving on the higher ground with less protection from the elements.
One surprise was the discovery of a plucking boulder, with redwing feathers, suggesting to me that the resident merlin had yet to forsake the area for the warmers climes of the coast.
One or two meadow pipits stuck to the higher ground, and my dog got up a snipe from a particularly boggy area.
Large numbers of buzzard and raven circled the valleys below.