Stonechat B785531

A quiet today getting ready for our visit to the Isle of May next week. Living on a rock for a week, it is best to try and remember things that you might need as there is no plan B!
Whilst Tricia worried about that, I had the nets up all day, not catching a bird until the afternoon. Things then got better and the day ended with thirteen birds ringed including six more Redwings.
My favourite bird of the day was this young Stonechat. Traditionally in most of Britain they are thought to be resident and here on Gearradubh I have never seen more than two together, thinking that there were that one resident pair. This bird above is the fourth I have ringed n the last month and this afternoon there was another unringed pair on the fence by our house. So at least six birds rather than two. Only by ringing these birds can we start getting this sort of information.

Perhaps rather less prosaically Norman MacCaig, a Scottish poet of the Twentieth century wrote that about a Stonechat summing up their character beautifully:

A flint-on-flint ticking – and there he is,
Trim and dandy – in square miles of bracken
And bogs and boulders a tiny work of art,
Bright as an illumination on a monkish parchment.