Rarer than a blue moon.....

I haven't seen that many black redstarts at Titchwell Marsh, and that got me thinking....

Only my fourth black redstart at Titchwell Marsh

I reckon I have been to the site approx 2800 times over the last twenty odd years and the 'black red' I saw on Saturday was only the 4th I can recall on site. To put it another way that's one every 700 visits or one every five or six years.

Black reds aren't classed as rare on a UK scale being scarce passage migrants (spring and autumn) and a number even spend the winter in the UK. They are however pretty rare as UK breeders with a breeding population of around fifty pairs. This bird is probably a migrant from the continent blown here on the persistent easterlies we have had for the last few weeks. It will probably head north once the winds die down.

My image isn't that good I'm afraid but you can just about see the red tail from which they take their name. Southerlies for the rest of the week should blow in a few summer visitors. They are all getting rather late now....lets hope for a long spell of settled weather to enable nature to catch up with the calendar, it is the middle of April after all.......the first swallows and cuckoos are just around the corner!