Please ID this garden bird
QPlease can you help ID this bird that sat on our fence for a couple of hours? The garden backs onto a grass pasture used by sheep. We thought it may be a juvenile Stonechat or juvenile Whinchat, but the bill looks very warbler like? Could it be resting during its migration? Jim Farrow
AIt’s a Wheatear – you can just make out the distinctive white rump, from which the bird derives its name (it’s a corruption of ‘white arse’!). The fact that this is next to sheep pastures is significant – Wheatears love such habitat, because of the insects attracted by the sheep, and they usually look for them from elevated perches. It could be stopping off on its long journey south to Africa.