Pied Wheatear – Newhaven, Sussex, 8^th July 1990

Okay, admittedly, this is actually the drawing I did soon after seeing the bird rather than one I have prepared specifically for the blog, but for now, at least, it will suffice. It was a stunning bird, whether or not my drawing captures this. 😎

Trained to twitch!

It’s easy for me to forget that at this time I didn’t have a car, meaning that, if I wasn’t twitching things with Pete Ewer and Mike Thompson, for instance, I sometimes had to find other means of getting there. No great hardship really, and once the reality for many twitchers (and indeed, still the reality for Mike, who has never learned to drive).

Therefore, travelling from St. Albans to see this involved three trains (not really too much of a problem as I then lived less than five minutes’ walk from the rain station in St. Albans), oh, and once in Newhaven, a very fortuitous lift from Jack Levene.

This got us close to the talus slope at the base of the Newhaven cliffs where the bird was. So were lots of twitchers / birders / birdwatchers, so viewing was not easy at first. This was not helped as the bird – slightly bedraggled as it was, was ‘hiding’ behind a large boulder. However, as the gallery moved around, so did the bird. 

It then showed itself to be a splendid black and white (pied?!) ‘white arse’ (the Old English derivation of wheatear). 

The back, wings, face mask and throat were black (although the primaries, secondaries and coverts were actually dark brown). The rest of the bird, the under-parts and the crown and the nape were whitish, with a hint of buff-grey colouring coming in on the crown and under-tail coverts. 

The rump and tail were predominately white (i.e., there was a very ‘light’ font inverted T ).

Just a few months later, on Sunday the 21st October 1990 a female / immature was seen at Holme, Norfolk, and 26 years after that, another female / immature was seen at Scatness, South Mainland, Shetland on the 15th October 2016.

Pied Wheatear, Newhaven, Sussex, July 1990 (photograph attributed to Tim Loseby).

Pied Wheatear, Holme, Norfolk, October 1990 (photograph attributed to Peter Ewer).