Black Restart at Hare Hatch Lane

Hare Hatch Lane is an excellent migration site for small passerines and regularly picks up Wheatears, Whinchats and Redstarts.  Local birder Matt Milne photographed a Redstart which was identified as a Black redstart, a scarce species in the county.  There is perhaps one record a year of this species.

I visited the site late afternoon when other birders had left the site.  It took a while to find the bird but it eventually turned up where previously seen.  I watched it for about 20 minutes as it fed.

Black Redstart - a juvenile bird.

Two Wheatears were also present in one of the paddocks.

Common Restart at Wapseys

 This was a visit in search of a Wryneck that had been found the previous evening.  Unfortunately the Wryneck could not be found but there were a lot of passerines in the scrub on the top of the hill.  Here a Common Redstart was found by Tony James.  This is not a common migratory species at this site.

The Redstart sat perched here for some time preening.

Nice tail!