Birds by Land and Sea 



Seen thus, his white forehead and black cheeks and 

 throat scarcely suffice to defeat the thought that in 

 the redstart we have but an elusive mingling of 

 robin and wheatear ; but, as the bird flits, expanding 

 its brilliant bay tail-feathers, and exposing the coverts 

 at their bases, we recognize in the sudden flash of 

 colour the distinctive feature which has earned for it 

 the name of redstart, or firetail. This bird is a 

 passenger only in our parts, and was last seen on the 

 28th April. 



The whinchat, however, comes to stay. Always 

 a bird of the open, he is at first more frequently to 

 be seen in the ploughed fields, where his low, 

 flitting flight, his abrupt pauses and poses, and the 

 flash of the white outer feathers of the tail, with its 

 dark terminal band, recall his fellow chat, the wheat- 

 ear. Unlike those of the wheatear, however, the 

 central feathers of the whinchat's tail are dark, and 

 a prominent white patch shows on the wing as it 

 flies ; when in repose, if the ruddy yellow breast 

 should not suffice to distinguish it from the buff- 

 breasted wheatear, a broad white stripe over the eye 

 of the whinchat remains an easily seen and definitive 

 test-mark. Like the redstart, the whinchat has his 

 points of affinity to the robin also. The suddenness 

 with which he mounts and vacates his perch 

 generally some low post or branch and the sprightly 

 bobbings of the head and flirtings of the tail, remind 

 one of the redbreast. His point of closest resem- 

 blance, however, is in his song. The opening notes, 



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