The Burbage Black Redstart or Unlocking the Bogey Bird

The Black Redstart is not a common bird nor is it very rare, in fact most birding clubs, news services and rarity committee’s would class it as scarce and that is a pretty accurate description – scarce. Scarce enough for most birders to want to see one (and feel the pain when they don’t connect) but not rare enough to provoke a great effort to twitch one over long distances.

In the UK it’s a rare and localised breeder (with around 50 pairs) restricted to urban and industrialised areas in the South East and West Midlands with the odd pair elsewhere and it is also a relative newcomer to the UK, arriving just after the Second World War, where it found the post-blitz bombed out and derelict areas of London to its liking. Several birds (mostly from the continent) will also spend the winter with us but it’s during Spring and, in particular, Autumn that most birds turn up.

For a few years now I’ve considered the Black Redstart to be a bogey bird, one I’ve just not been lucky (or persistent) enough to add to my UK list. I’ve seen them on the continent in Spain and Portugal where they are fairly common place, comfortable near people and fill the same ecological niche as our own Robin. On the continent Robins are timid woodland birds not like our back garden thugs and one theory as to why Black Redstart has not further colonised the UK and is still restricted to urban areas is that in locations where it meets our Robin it is bullied, out competed and sent packing! I’ve missed a few birds within walking distance of home including a singing male that held a territory on Friargate, Derby for a few days (whilst I was on holiday in Wales!!) and an Autumn female/juv at The Sanctuary (my old local patch in Derby) which turned out to be a one morning wonder and had done a bunk by the time I got there after work. In April this year, at the peak of lockdown, another singing male turned up at Derby City Councils Stores Road depot and was seen by one lucky employee and another birder. By the time I got there (on my walk back from work) I could hear the bird singing from near the edge of the depot but didn’t managed so much as a glimpse! The following day it was gone and I allowed myself a technical but unsatisfactory ‘heard only’ tick (it joined Nightingale (Ambaston) and Savi’s Warbler (Attenborough) on that small but exclusive list). Frustrating!

A couple of weeks ago the first reports of a Black Redstart at Burbage Rocks in Sheffield’s bit of the Peak District started to filter through and with sightings remaining regular I decided to head up there and try my luck in South Yorkshire!

It’s a beautiful area with gritstone edges on both flanks falling away from the car park at Burbage Bridge, high bleak moors on either side and a gentle moorland valley in between and with the sun breaking through to warm a very chilly morning I left the car feeling pretty positive about my quest.

Walking the path below the rocks that the bird had been haunting the size of the task became apparent, lots of very big rocks for a small bird to hide in!The haunt of the Black Redstart – big rocks and a small bird!Three other birders were just down the path and confirmed that I was in the right area but that there had been no sightings so far. We staked out a likely looking spot that gave us good views across the rock face and waited…optimism slowly giving way to that familiar sinking feeling as time to ticked by (I could have been at home in the warm with a coffee and a bacon butty was a recurring thought).

After about 30 minutes there was a flurry of activity as three Meadow Pipits flew into the rocks we were scanning and suddenly there were four birds in the air with the newcomer giving chase to one of the Pipits before alighting on the corner of a rock – a flash of quivering orange tail, the bins locking on and there are it was in all its understated grey and orange glory – the bogey bird, the Black Redstart! Relief and big socially distanced smiles all round as we went on to enjoy the birds antics flitting around the rocks and small Oaks for the next few minutes (unfortunately never sitting still for long enough to get the traditional, and generally awful, souvenir digi-scoped record shot) before the arrival of a Kestrel on the rocks sent the bird skittering for cover in the crevices behind an Oak.

A brilliant bird, a wonderful encounter and a long awaited proper tick (all the sweeter for the missed birds and the long wait? Not sure about that..) and as I sit here finally enjoying that cup of coffee and bacon butty my mind turns again to bogey birds and what’s next on the hit list – Wryneck anyone?