With the bad weather easing off just a little the Birdwatch Alpujarras team is looking forward to getting out and about at last...sitting out the rain has been frustrating to say the least! It has however given us a chance to take a closer look at some of our winter regulars, and we thought we'd consider another seasonal favourite, the Black Redstart.

Migratory over the eastern half of its European range, the Black Redstart is a year-long resident across much of Italy, France and Iberia. With the winter population around the Mediterranean swollen with migrants from further afield it's been a common sight during the colder months in the orchards and olive groves around Lanjaron. Breeding males are particularly striking...slate grey above, with sooty black faces and chests, they show a distinctive white bar on the folded wing and bright orange-red sides to the tail. The female is a more uniform, mousy grey-brown but still shows the red tail.

Wintering and immature birds can be a decidedly nondescript grey though, and it is this out of season colouration we have been seeing over the last few weeks. Behaviour and habits have been a great help in identifying this species during this time: like other members of the Chats and Thrushes group, the Black Redstart often appears shy and nervous. They flit animatedly between favourite perches, bobbing characteristically before darting off, all the while vibrating their rusty red tails. Always a little skittish and flighty, Black Redstarts do however seem to show a Robin-like, curious side to their nature and have been surprisingly trusting while I've been working on the land on recent sunnier days.

As spring approaches this winter influx will inevitably thin out, as they start to head off and return to their breeding grounds. Favouring scree, rocky slopes and crags, nesting Black Redstarts also readily occupy towns and villages. They may move onto industrial sites and run-down areas of larger cities, where they can find older buildings offering holes in which to rear young and rough or waste ground on which to feed. Birdwatchers back home may well be familiar with its recent colonization of the UK: it first nested on a British urban site in only 1926, but the use of London bomb sites after WWII was the real turning point, with up to around 100 pairs now nesting annually at often secret sites across the country. Frequent sightings of this UK rarity have been a major highlight of my birdwatching down here in Andalucia!

As ever Kiersten has been busy with the camera and our best shots so far are included here...as the season progresses we hope to capture this endearing bird in all its summer glory, so as always keep checking our posts for all the latest news. For now we'll have to enjoy the rather subdued tones of its winter plumage, and look forward to the more vibrant colours of summer...