ON THE WILD SIDE
IT’S funny to think of how things might be different if some animals changed their habits.
The subject of today’s mini-rant might have been as beloved as the robin, if only they didn’t sod off somewhere warmer all winter.
Arguably, today’s bird is more handsome than the robin, and can be seen in similar environments, including gardens!
So friends, today say hello to the gorgeous redstart.
The female redstart doesn’t really look like anything special.
Honestly, she looks like a robin who has been out in the rain too long and all her red colouring has drained down from her chest into her tail.
So, brownish and pale body with a distinct red tail. The male is infinitely more attractive. They have a black face and wings, white forehead and belly, slate-blue back and the rest red, like a sexy robin.
The name “redstart” literally means red tail, which makes sense, while their Latin name translates to “crimson-tailed crimsontail”. Original.
Some of their local British names include Bessy brantail, fire flirt, woh snatch, white cap and Fanny redtail.
It’s understandable that the red tail is such a fixation. Common redstarts and black redstarts are the only birds in Europe with red tails. If I were to say that the UK has rainforests, you might look at me like I have two heads, but moist, coastal woodlands, mainly on the west coast, are “temperate rainforests”.
This is the absolute speciality of the redstart, loving the warmer, wetter habitats. They are hole
Visitor like ‘sexy’ robin
nesters in mature woodlands, nesting in ancient oaks or old birch trees, but that’s not to say these rare woodlands are the only places they live.
They are happy to live in regular woodlands, parklands, gardens, etc, as long as they have some mature trees. I’ve seen them making their nests in stone walls and old barns instead of trees. These birds will arrive in the next few weeks and stay until October. The males always arrive before the females. Unlike robins, they don’t like to spend any time on the ground if they can help it, so you’ll have to look in trees for them. Oddly, they can be a target for common cuckoos, but rather than killing the other babies in the nest, redstart and cuckoo chicks have been seen coexisting in the same nest.