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An Eastern Black Redstart at Sheringham in Norfolk

   
Eastern Black Redstart

 The attractive Eastern Black Redstart has been on my radar for some time as a bird I would like to see and photograph. This winter there have been two of them in the UK, one at Filey in Yorkshire earlier this winter and more recently a first winter, i.e. hatched this spring, male at Sheringham on the Norfolk coast. 

 

So on Wednesday I set sail on a pre-storm Goretti visit to Sheringham. Black Redstarts tend to spend a lot of time on the ground foraging and the Sheringham bird, true to form, had spent a long time in amongst the formal gardens on the esplanade at Sheringham.

 

I arrived just before 10am on a truly bitterly cold morning and was immediately very glad that I had dug my thermals and warm hat out for the trip. Half a dozen people were milling around the general area the Redstart had been frequenting and it had been spotted once that morning on a roof. It took another hour or so for it to put in another brief roof appearance before it flew over our heads and dropped over some sheltered benches on the seafront. After a short while it briefly showed very well on the ground and walls around the formal Esplanade gardens and I manged to get my hoped for pictures.

 

The Eastern Black Redstart is currently considered to be a subspecies of our own scarce overwintering and rare resident breeder, the Black Redstart. It breeds in the rocky mountain regions of Central Asia and overwinters in India, Northeast Africa, and the Middle East. With a deep rufous-cinnamon colouration on the sides of breast, belly, flanks, vent, and underwings, contrasting sharply with a black chest and throat it bares more resemblance to our summer migrant the Common Redstart than the Western Black Redstart. Its identification is further complicated by occasional Common Redstart x Black Redstart hybrids which it can closely resemble. Most male hybrids, however, have the familiar white forehead patch of Common Redstart and messy edges to the orange breast colours.


Eastern Black Redstart

     

With regular Black Redstart
  
and Common Redstart for comparison 

With no further appearances in the next hour and the bitter cold wind penetrating my very bones, I escaped back to my car and a sandwich before driving up the coast to the RSPB coastal reserve at Titchwell. Here the highlight was a Red-breasted Merganser feeding comparatively close in on one of the saltwater lakes so I dawdled for a while taking photographs. 

 

This handsome diving duck belongs to the sawbill family so named for their serrated bills that they use to catch fish. Red-breasted Mergansers are most commonly seen around the UK's coastline in winter. They are very sociable, forming flocks of several hundred so it is somewhat unusual to see one on its own. The red breast that gives the species its common name is only displayed by males in breeding plumage. I love their spiky punk like crest and long red bill with its serrated edges. The male has a dark head with a green sheen, a white neck with a rusty breast, a black back, and white underparts.


     


 

    

Next I  moved down to the beach where if anything the wind chill seemed even more extreme.  Scoping the water’s edge provided views of the usual suspects, Sanderling, Curlew, Turnstone and Oystercatcher before I decided to call it a day and head back to the warmth of my car while briefly taking a few more pics of the Merganser on the way back.

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