Stonechat on Scout Scar

Female stonechat

Stonechat prepare to breed on Scout Scar.  The habitat is perfect.  Early this millennium you might hear some half a dozen on a morning. But in the last few years they’ve fallen silent, impossible to find, absent. Then last spring and summer I found a breeding pair.  And they’re back. Yesterday the male was singing, not the alarm call like two stones struck together that give the bird its name, but his song. I know a glacial erratic scooped smooth as a recliner and I lay in the sun, apricating, soaking up sunlight like an apricot on a south-facing wall.  In my stillness and silence the stonechat sang.

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He sang in a hawthorn not far off, but the sun was behind him. 
Next day,  a blissfully calm  and sunny morning. I found him directly, although he was not singing. This time, the light shone full on him. He perched in a hawthorn, flitted to the topmost branch of a holly. And his mate was close by, using the same high point.  I think stonechat no longer thrive here because we are too many, too many walkers and dogs. In the Outer Hebrides it’s easy to come much closer to stonechat. Here, they’re more wary.
Stonechat nest low in gorse or tussock, states my Collins Bird Guide.   Eager to see them thrive, I  take care not to disturb them, keep my distance and move quickly on.

Three days I've listened to his song. I realise how rarely I've heard it. Usually, it's the alarm call that draws us to stonechat.  On Achill Island, a few years ago, we watched a male stonechat in display flight in the perfect place: a rocky headland overlooking the Atlantic.