Stonechat at last

"He'd better hurry up with that photo or we'll all topple over!"

It had been quite a while since I'd seen a Stonechat but on Saturday the familiar call caught my ear across the beach, where succeeded in photographing Oystercatchers beside a very sloping sea and a quick scan brought the species on to the year list.

I spent a few hours around the east side of Whitby relocating the Velvet Scoter by the coastguards, seeing the reduced Common Scoter flock, admiring a very fancy drake Eider in the inner harbour and a good number of his peers offshore and then moving on to Saltwick where amongst other things like a single Red-throated Diver offshore, there was the afore mentioned Stonechat. I searched for the Chiffchaff unsuccessfully and then having warmed up in the Coop spent a bit more time mooching around the harbour.

Herring Gull (1st winter) on roof of pickup


Carrion Crow, for once obligingly tame.

GB-bG 1st winter in colourful surroundings, Whitby

Having been sent some superb photographs of a Chiffchaff (maybe a tristis) from Starr Carr near Scarborough (thanks Dave) I had a browse of the Birdguides picture archive looking for definitive tristis. Many labelled tristis but few convinced and surprisingly few had been heard to call. I think I'd better dig out the BB article and see what it says. This does seem to be a form that we are still struggling to pin down (so to speak). The call should nail this id but of course this individual failed to call - unlike the Chiffchaff I found beofre New Year at Saltwick, there was no doubt to that id.

Here's a slightly odd Chiffchaff call from Hawsker in the autumn. You'll have to turn the volume up somewhat - bit of a rubbish recording, sorry.