Redwing

• GeneralIt migrates at night, and its calls carry down to the ground as it passes.
• In the olive groves of southern Spain a study found that 86% of its winter diet was plant matter, and of that fraction 97% was olives: in the Altiplano of Granada they call it "aceitunero", the olive-eater.
• It is so nomadic and so unfaithful to its wintering areas that the Iberian wintering population can swing between several million and a few thousand from one year to the next.
• As it eats fruit in winter, it acts as a seed disperser and contributes to reforestation, a process called ornithochory.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat and environment

Boreal birch woods; olive groves and copses in winter

Birth weight

Altricial: born blind, naked or with sparse down and entirely dependent

Size at birth

Altricial: born blind, naked or with sparse down and entirely dependent

Sexual maturity

1 year

Gestation / incubation

About 13-15 days

Litter / clutch size

4-6 eggs, with two clutches a season and occasionally a third in Iceland

Sources consulted: SEO/BirdLife (ficha y III Atlas de las aves en época de reproducción en España); IUCN Red List; Asturnatura; Santos y Tellería 2022, III Atlas; Lista Roja Europea de Aves 2021; Santos 1985; SEO/BirdLife 2012, Atlas de las aves en invierno

Best time: From October to March in Spain, with the bulk of the wintering between November and January