Watching 3-4 Stonechat on Lollingdon hill this morning when they were joined by a 5th bird.
Initially I thought, another Stonechat but the chats were quite aggressive towards the newcomer which almost immediately flew off and landed on a gate around 30m from me.
As I got my bins on it, it decided to fly over me and flew down the track to a hedgerow. I managed to see enough of it to realise it was a Redstart. So I moved on down the track to look for it.
The bird was very flighty and kept moving down the hedge to where the hedge ended. I was noting the red tail and a dark plumage, too dark for a Common Redstart.
I stayed back about 50m from the area and the bird dropped out the hedge a couple of times onto the track. that’s when I got a couple of good views of it and confirmed it as a f/immature Black Redstart. Unfortunately too flighty for a photo.
I immediately phoned Alan who arrived around 15 minutes later but in that time the bird had disappeared and despite both of us searching the area from the hill to the north and the farm to the south, we were unable to relocate the bird.
This is quite a rare bird in the Cholsey area with the last record on 14th Nov 2014, coincidentally on Lollingdon Hill.
Alan went up the hill later in the day but still no sign, although the 4 Stonechat were still present.
Not a lot else around though I did see 2 Redwing on the north side of the hill. A few Chiffchaff, 8 Yellowhammer plus Meadow Pipit, Skylark and Pied Wagtail around in fair numbers.
Mammals: Brown Hare.
Butterflies: singles of Small White & Red Admiral.
Stonechats (2&3 & the Buzzard courtesy Alan)
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