Abundant resident and winter visitor.

Confirmed as breeding in every tetrad covering Stevenage in all three Breeding Atlases, they can be found in most gardens providing there is some shrubby cover and a worm rich lawn on which to feed.

The largest numbers seen together are: 23 (all males) in Hawthorns (Crataegus monogyna) at Fairlands School on 12 April 1974; 20+ roosting near Roebuck in 1975; 45 feeding on a small lawn of an old peoples home in Chells on 8 December 1974.

An unusual record from Astonbury Wood in 1978 of two birds found nesting on the floor of the wood, at the base of trees. Ground nesting is usually more associated with montane Blackbirds.

The 2012 Winter Atlas confirmed their presence from all 11 of the tetrads covering Stevenage.

At Watery Grove they were recorded annually as, holding between 2 and 15 breeding territories by the Common Bird Census between, 1972 and 1999.

Ringing recoveries: a male, “controlled” at Box Wood in 1979 had been ringed at Ottenby in Sweden; a bird ringed in Stevenage on 15 September 1979 was killed at East Molesey, Surrey on 3 May 1980; an adult female ringed at Vlieland in the Netherlands on 29 October 2015 was caught by a ringer at Broadwater on 2 January 2016; one ringed as a first year male at St Margaret’s at Cliffe, Kent  on 26 October 2017 was caught by a ringer at Fishers Green on 7 June 2019.