I walk my dog fairly early in the morning, and often the thrushes are still eating the yew berries from the large tree at the farmhouse. A Redwing was perfectly perched on a twig at the top, so I managed to get a really good look at the red-orange underwing, and pale eyestripe.
Obviously not a great view without binoculars…
On the way back I noticed a very dark little bird hovering above the headland vegetation; the docks and nettles have yet to be mown so there are lots of dead stems. The bird sat atop a tall stem before flitting up and off to land on another nearby. A Stonechat, and like the Redwing, he sat still for long enough for me to get a really good look, and memorise some of the positions so I could draw them when I got home. I am trying to practise the technique of ‘freeze-framing’ so I can carry the mental image long enough to sketch it out!
Here are my drawings:
The large Redwing is copied from an illustration in Bill Oddie’s Birds of Britain & Ireland but the others are from memory.
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