No Wheatears

With reports of Wheatear on the Malverns
during last week I thought I'd go a take a
look. I popped up on Thursday and found
a total of six. It was good mixture of adult
and juvenile all looking in good condition
and feeding quite well.

I did try for a few photo's but there was
very little light in the evening. The whole
was more or less in full shade. I thought I'd
leave it till the weekend.

Saturday morning came and I tried again.

I made a good search around the valley but

all to no avail. The only thing I could find

was a flock of Linnet. The Wheatear had

obviously moved on, I thought back to the

previous year and I could remember a

good amount of Wheatear beening around
for most of August. Hopefully this won't be
the only chance I get.

I moved on to where the Redstarts have
been for the past few months breeding not
really expecting to see them, thinking they
may have already moved on, but to my 

surprise they were still a few in the area.

I settled down and waited in my usually

place and like previous times before the 
first bird on the scene was a Robin.

After a few mouthfuls of mealworm the 
Robin disappeared. It was long after the
first Redstart appeared - A female.

She only made a quick visit. She picked

up as much as could in her beak and

retreated quickly to the nearby bushes.

It wasn't long before she returned making

the most of my free offerings.

I stayed for few hours watching and waiting

for more to arrive but none did. They were

around, I could see juvenile males, at least

two in the vicinity and an adult male but

they kept away, obviously got better things

to do or maybe just sick of Mealworm.

Hopefully I might just squeeze another trip

in before they leave for on their long journey.