It goes without saying that I was successful as you can see the photos. I had sat quietly in an are that I knew contained Redstarts but was getting just a little bit frustrated that I hadn’t seen any. I sat on a tree stump and was reaching for the coffee flask when to my left, and close, I heard a bird calling which I identified the call, wrongly it turned out, as a Willow Warbler. They make this kind of single repeated call. I caught sight of the bird briefly and trained my lens on it, it was a female Redstart, stupid of me to get it wrong but I was pleased to say the least. The first of the year for me. Within seconds I had caught sight of the male, they are so stunning! Moving away seemed to be the best option because I guessed that I was near there nest. I was right because from a safe distance I spotted which nest box they were using. I made a decision to place the chair hide at a safe distance and waited. It didn’t take long and after 3 or 4 minutes the female was first to show her self.

They were feeding youngsters in the nest and I guessed that they were quite well grown because both parents were out of the box collecting food and there was no brooding going on. When the returned to the nest they would not immediately go in spending a few minutes perching on branches nearby, flying back to the box and then back to the branches before finally entering the box. I suppose that this ids a defence strategy and they were checking that all was safe before going in. This was reassuring because it proved that my hide was not considered a threat.

They appeared to take it in turns to bring food but sometimes they would be at the nest box together. I timed the visits at around 12 minutes apart. Here the male is emerging from the nestbox after feeding. 

Then another time he came out carrying a faecal pouch which is quite large and could give further indication to the size of the youngsters.

I tried very hard to get better and better pictures but because of the “sensitive” nature of the birds and not wanting to disturb them I didn’t get close nor use the flash so it was not as easy as it may appear. I did like this shot of the hen with a beak full of what looks like a bee but has large antenna, it could be a May Bug? She caught the sun really well so you can see a large shadow on the breast of the bird.