I've posted a few times recently from 'Siskin City'--this is our member Pat's garden a few miles west of Welshpool. His house is in a small hamlet with superb upland habitat pretty well all around. He has been catching a few recently fledged Siskins over the last couple of weeks--proving what we thought was the case--that the surrounding conifer woodlands are a strong breeding site for Siskin.
Last week however, as he went to the net he had a wonderful ( if not totally unexpected) surprise in the form of this absolute stunner......
This is a male Common Redstart. He has glimpsed birds around his garden all summer so the signs are there for a nestbox ready for next year.
Redstarts are a member of what are known as 'chats'--which is a group of smashing, often colourful birds such as Wheatears, Whinchat, Stonechat and Black Redstart. They are mostly highly migratory, spending our winter in Africa, but coming north to breed in our summer. They occupy an evolutionary niche between thrushes and warblers/flycatchers.
But why is it called a Redstart? Well it isn't because of the lovely rufous breast--but it is a derivation from an old English nickname, where 'start' meant either tail or bum!! Here is a picture of the bird's tail--
Colourful enough as you can see--but what you can't see from this image is what the bird does with its tail. Every time it lands, its tail, for want of a better term, wobbles, in a very characteristic and obvious way. Even folks back in the day without binoculars would have been attracted by this and that's how the name was derived. The bird is a classic in these wooded upland habitats, and it would be great if Pat could get them breeding in his garden......is that the sound of saw, screwdriver and hammer I can already hear???
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