FLOCKS of visiting birds are abandoning the countryside in favour of the region's supermarkets and city centres.
Record numbers of berry-eating waxwings and Scandinavian thrushes, which have flown in from northern Russia and normally feed in hedgerows, are heading for out-of-town supermarkets to find a nutritious meal.
Hedge-trimming is destroying the crops on which the visitors thrive and the birds are now being seen in urban areas, with a flock of 600 close to the Tyne Tunnel entrance in South Tyneside, 500 at Corbridge, Northumberland, and another flock at Morpeth, Northumberland.
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