Male redstart on budding whitebeam A redstart sings in the hanging wood below Scout Scar. Every spring redstart return from Africa and sing high in whitebeam that rise on the scree buttress below the escarpment. His silver-blue mantle blends into tree bark but when he shifts a little his rufous breast and white forehead give him away. The sun illuminates him, the wind has dropped and the morning is calm. He lifts his head in bursts of song interspersed with the bleating of lambs, the song of chiff-chaff and croak of raven. In the glory of the morning I sit amongst blue moor grass beside a juniper.
His glorious tail flickers flame and he flutters from his wand of whitebeam and loops the air over, in display flight. Then he flits away, sings from another perch, and I listen intently and seek him through the territory he claims as his own. The coming of redstart and my being here to greet them is a rite of spring, always on the last day or so of April, the first of May.
No one sees him, no one stops to discover the secret life of the hanging wood. And despite his song, his gorgeous plumage and his tail of flame he is secret. Today's meeting has been years in the making. There's a redstart calendar in my mind and I await his coming. I know his habit and his habitat: it's as if he has a grid reference programmed to particular trees in the hanging wood, and I've learnt them too. The first notes of his song touch my heart. He sings to his kind whilst wary of predators, and the canopy reveals and conceals him. In intermittent song, he flits to other branches and my search begins again. It takes a keen ear to pinpoint song and anyone unfamiliar with it might not bother to seek for him, not knowing the treat in store. And all the while the April sun highlights the first coming of spring to the escarpment.
In a few days male redstart will be contesting territory and seeking mates, singing from tree tops all along the escarpment- until walkers and runners appear and they vanish. Whitebeam buds will burst into flower, into leaf, and once the redstarts have mates they'll be more discreet and harder to see.
Two days ago I heard and saw my first cuckoo of the season. I was out there looking for him yesterday but the wind drowned out everything except valiant larksong. This morning I heard him as I approached the escarpment, turned to find him sitting in a bare ash, his wings drooped below his body. Our eyes met and he flew. Two sightings and April is not out.
On Ghyll Brow I heard a loud tapping and found a great spotted woodpecker at the top of a telegraph pole.
No one sees him, no one stops to discover the secret life of the hanging wood. And despite his song, his gorgeous plumage and his tail of flame he is secret. Today's meeting has been years in the making. There's a redstart calendar in my mind and I await his coming. I know his habit and his habitat: it's as if he has a grid reference programmed to particular trees in the hanging wood, and I've learnt them too. The first notes of his song touch my heart. He sings to his kind whilst wary of predators, and the canopy reveals and conceals him. In intermittent song, he flits to other branches and my search begins again. It takes a keen ear to pinpoint song and anyone unfamiliar with it might not bother to seek for him, not knowing the treat in store. And all the while the April sun highlights the first coming of spring to the escarpment.
In a few days male redstart will be contesting territory and seeking mates, singing from tree tops all along the escarpment- until walkers and runners appear and they vanish. Whitebeam buds will burst into flower, into leaf, and once the redstarts have mates they'll be more discreet and harder to see.
Two days ago I heard and saw my first cuckoo of the season. I was out there looking for him yesterday but the wind drowned out everything except valiant larksong. This morning I heard him as I approached the escarpment, turned to find him sitting in a bare ash, his wings drooped below his body. Our eyes met and he flew. Two sightings and April is not out.
On Ghyll Brow I heard a loud tapping and found a great spotted woodpecker at the top of a telegraph pole.
I wish and do not wish that I'd had my camera with me to make a video of the redstart flitting about his perch. A photographer friend said recently that sometimes it's best simply to give yourself to the experience, to look and listen. The redstart looked good through binoculars but the bird pictured here was closer and a backdrop of blue sky made a good composition. And as he moved through the trees I followed with binoculars- with a camera I would probably not have been able to study his behaviour.
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