A FEW black redstarts are found here in the winter, and individuals were spotted yesterday among the beach chalets at Heacham in Norfolk, on the RSPB Fowlmere reserve in Cambridgeshire, and at Sharpness in Gloucestershire.
The males are dark grey in winter, with a flickering red tail; in summer they are a more striking black. The females are brown with a red tail.
On the Continent they are common birds in the summer, darting after flies round the pinnacles on cathedral roofs or among the apparatus on the top of tall office blocks, and singing a brief song with some odd buzzing notes in it.
In Britain in summer, about 100 pairs are scattered across the country on city roofs and on buildings such as power stations.
They first became well-known here when they nested on the ruins of buildings that had been bombed during the Second World War.
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Originally they were inhabitants of sea cliffs and other rocky places, and some still are, but they find these tall human structures a perfectly satisfactory substitute.
DJM