Sunday, October 14, 2012
A sunny day on the heaths
My sore throat having vanished, I headed for one of my favourite places; but any hopes of an autumn shrike were to be disappointed.
Four Dartford warblers were seen during my walk, and two are just visible in this image.
This is one of a pair of stonechats; stonechats were often close to the Dartfords and quite a bit of chasing was going on.
Now, I know it's difficult to imagine being over the moon about the next picture - but I am. A small palish bird out in the middle of the heath fly-catching had looked good for whinchat, and I clicked off a couple of optimistic shots in its general direction. I thought it then flew to a dead fallen tree where two stonechats were fly-catching, but this bird turned out to be a meadow pipit. I couldn't relocate the whinchat and assumed I'd misidentified the female stonechat.
By chance, one shot caught the bird in flight (head towards the left). The tail pattern is pretty distinctive (if not diagnostic) and this, together with a striking white supercilium, points to whinchat. I'm chuffed because the bird was very distant and I only had a fleeting view, but it looks as though my initial ID was right after all.
Otherwise it was fairly quiet; and the walk back to the car was chiefly remarkable for my hobbling gait, since the lace on one of my boots had snapped and the other boot was rubbing against a sudden mysterious bruise on my ankle, making walking very painful. And still the expected flu hasn't yet materialised, so I'm pleased to have enjoyed another lovely day in the great outdoors.
// posted by Christine @ 1:06 PM 
