Delicacy from ancient times
A flash of dazzling white is the most you can expect from seeing a northern wheatear on the wing.
Such encounters invariably end with the bird vanishing across a fallow field or over a grassy hillside, its striking tail markings seared into the mind’s eye.
These glaring features give rise to the wheatear’s ancient and rather earthy name – one which has no association with growing cereal crops.
Early Anglo-saxon settlers dubbed the birds ‘white arses’, combining the Old English words for white (whit) and backside (aers) as a nod to the pristine rump they flare to distract predators when taking flight.
September is the optimum time to find wheatears in open country or on coastal headlands as British-bred birds and wanderers from as far as Greenland and Canada head towards wintering grounds in Africa. Some birds cover more than 7,000 miles in autumn and have to perform epic, non-stop flights across the Atlantic.
Taking a breather was often a death sentence in previous times, when wheatear flesh was hailed as the “most delicious taste for a creature of one mouthful”, according to the 17th century writer Daniel Defoe.
Trapping wheatears for fancy hotels and eateries became a lucrative trade and thousands of birds were slaughtered and sold for a few pence each.
Fortunately, the practice is illegal today but the plight of the wheatear continues. The decrease in rabbit numbers has had the knock-on effect of reducing the burrow-rich, grassy swards where the birds once bred across large parts of the country.
Hence, most birder encounters are with individuals too driven by the migratory imperative to stop and pose. Unless you are very lucky.
I would never consider myself a photographer but I was left dumbfounded by the results of recent point-and-shoot efforts on my local patch, pictured above.
A young bird touched down on a fence post long enough to strike a pose and display its gorgeous autumnal shades of browns, fawns and coppers. One for the photo album as well as the memory bank.
Wheatears were once hunted for their ‘most delicious taste’