Redstart against the Lake District Fells Redstart are come. There’s a sense of urgency in the chilly air. The imperative of the breeding season: find a mate, claim a territory. Here, and now. The topmost branches of budding whitebeam rise above the cliff edge and here the males display. Hot African colour against snow on the distant fells which the sun highlights. Cloud blots out the Langdale Pikes , flows across the Lyth Valley and unleashes a volley of hail on Scout Scar. The birds vanish, down into the trees that grow against the cliff face- an inaccessible wood perfect for their nests.
From sunrise, I’d been listening to redstart singing in the ash trees and marvelling at the play of darkness and light over the snow-white fells on this last day of April. The birds were singing but they were hard to see. All the while this elemental drama of skyscape and fells. Then I began to find redstart displaying above the cliff edge against the backdrop of the Langdale Pikes, brilliant with snow. That was the image I was after. As the morning advanced runners and dog walkers appeared, taking in the vistas and oblivious of the redstart which vanished at their approach.
I worked out the perfect image: redstart in budding whitebeam against a foil of snow-clad fells. I began at a distance, hoping I might come a little closer If I crept oh so slowly. When bam! My bird was gone. A photographer intent on vistas strode right across my picture to the cliff edge. Good manners suggests you don’t walk through someone else’s photograph! He gave me a friendly grin, wholly unaware of what he'd done.
I worked out the perfect image: redstart in budding whitebeam against a foil of snow-clad fells. I began at a distance, hoping I might come a little closer If I crept oh so slowly. When bam! My bird was gone. A photographer intent on vistas strode right across my picture to the cliff edge. Good manners suggests you don’t walk through someone else’s photograph! He gave me a friendly grin, wholly unaware of what he'd done.
The morning was all about coincidence: an influx of redstart looking to breed and their choice of the escarpment edge to sing and display. Favourable weather, a brilliance of snow with newly arrived spring migrants and my being there at the right time. It’s happened only once before, on 7 May 2007 and I wrote it up in About Scout Scar. No snow and no images that time
The drama of the elements was stunning but the displaying redstart gave a seasonal colour and a motif that made it memorable.
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