Country diary: let's begin with the redstart

Deep Dale, Derbyshire: These beautiful, vibrant birds inscribe their territory in song If there is a more beautiful summer bird in Britain than the common redstart then its name escapes me. The male's back is the colour of dark limestone. There is a circle of basaltic grey around the face and a flake of quartz at the forecrown, but his breast is the warmest, softest orange in an English spring.In this county Phoenicurus phoenicurus is the genius loci of patchy scrub in limestone dales - those rather widely spread hawthorns that cleave to the top of slopes and whose wind-warped shapes remind me of ancient olives. From the crowns of a nest of these bushes the male was busy inscribing his territory in song. Continue reading...