With no more than the odd single Goldcrest having been logged all autumn, it was great to suddenly see the trees alive with them today © Jodie Henderson:
The Siberian Stonechat looked to be a first-winter male (it's obviously a male just from the amount of black around the face and the blackness of the underwing coverts, whilst the contrast between, for example, the densely black alula and adjacent feathers vs the more greyish-black primary coverts would certainly suggest it's a youngster). However, beyond that it was a bit of a chameleon with its appearance changing quite dramatically in different lights (...or with different camera settings). Our perception in life was of a quite cold-coloured bird with a startlingly pale rump and we had little doubt when watching it in the field that it conformed much more closely to Siberian maurus than it did to Amur stejnegeri; that said, this isn't entirely borne out by this series of photos that show a lot of warmth/saturation in some lights, even if the rump does always look extensively very pale and largely lacking the rich apricot colour that we'd associate with a good stejnegeri. Although its field appearance can be argued over, it'd be useful to catch this bird so that its subspecific identity can be established for certain. A smart bird and still a really good rarity at Portland with only just into double figures of records ever and none for a very long time © Martin Cade:
We're really not set up to be videographers or whatever the on-trend term for the various oddballs who're touting their wares about the ornithological web these days call themselves - within 15 seconds of turning our kiddie video camera on the battery died and the spare battery had no charge. Doh!
