336 : Redstart

Redstart - Phoenicurus phoenicurus

There is a hill near to where my wife's parents lived for their last 10 or so years (in the case of my Mother-in-Law at least who made it to 89 I believe). They lived near to Holywell in Clwyd. More a range of hills or ridge. In the Summer months the boys would stay with their grandmother to escape the Dubai heat. Prior to that we lived quite close in Hale, South Manchester. So probably since they can remember my boys have been chasing up and down "Raspberry Mountain". I am not even sure what its real name is. Last Summer they lost their grandma but that Summer we climbed up the hill again.

Redstart is a great Welsh bird and I have seen them with some regularity in amongst the oak trees near to the mountain. Up close (and I am sorry that I don't have a better picture) they will "shiver" their tails. The smart silver, black, russet and white flash on the crown is a gorgeous combination. I have got the colours pretty much below if nothing else.

I took Jean out for a spin about a few months before died and I think we had Red Kite, Redstart and Raven in one morning - quite a nice suite of Welsh birds.

The Redstart really is a bird of upland woods and scrub. I never saw Redstarts growing up in the South East. Red"Start" means red "Tail" or "Steort" in Old English. Both the male and female birds have striking red under tail feathers. These birds are migrants so only with us for 4-5 months each year.

In one of my books it details the events of the great migrant "fall" of 1965. Birds migrating South from Scandinavia were forced West and then to land by rough weather. Along one 2 mile stretch of coast line near Walberswick in Suffolk one observer logged 15,000 Redstarts. Two redstarts for every step he took. Not just Redstarts but thousands upon thousands of Garden Warblers, Whinchats, Wheatears, Pied Flycatchers. On another 24 mile stretch of coast between Sizewell in Suffolk and Hopton half a million birds were observed. I'd love to see that spectacle once in my life. There is a similar event in a book about bird racing now made into a film with Steve Martin and Jack Black.

Anyway here is just one Redstart bird-marking Raspberry mountain.

Redstart, Phoenicurus phoenicurus
Raspberry Mountain, Clywd
July 2015