The black redstart

The Andalucía Bird Society recommends looking out for the Phoenicurus ochruros this month

Peter Jones

Ronda

Friday, 15 November 2024, 18:11

For many bird watchers growing up in England in the 1950's – 1970's this was known as the bombsite bird. It was a distinctly uncommon species and was often found in the ruins of bombed out urban areas. These temporary habitats proximate its natural ones, i.e. rocky areas, scree and crags.

Here in Andalucía, it is decidedly more common and widespread. It displays a huge range of altitudinal occupation from sea level to the peaks of the Sierra Nevada at 3500m. Our resident black redstart is of the subspecies aterrimus, with the males much more boldly coloured deep slate, often tinged with grey. During the winter they will descend from the high peaks, often moving in farmed lowland areas, and even become resident in urban gardens, where they can be quite tame. Almost all are resident, though there is some evidence that a few may move south to Morocco during particularly hard winters.

During the breeding season the male selects the nest site (holes, cavities and crevices), although it is the female that builds the nest. Into this moss lined cup, four to six eggs are laid and the female assumes brood duties, though once hatched both parents feed the young. Here there are normally two broods per year.

Black redstarts are highly active birds, and they are often seen constantly dipping and flickering their tails and dropping to the ground to feed. The Victorians likened this shimmering of the red tail as being like the flickering flames in their fires and hence they referred to both black and common redstart as 'firetails'.

During migration times and the winter these resident 'Andalusian' black redstarts are far outnumbered by individuals from northern, central and western Europe and these are of the subspecies gibraltariensis. The males of these individuals are paler and less colourful than our resident birds, though the females remain indistinguishable from aterrimus. Many of these migrants will stay with us over the winter, whilst others will continue south into Africa.

During the autumn it is worth keeping an eye out for the black redstart males to see if they are aterrimus or gibraltarriensis subspecies; any field guide should have illustrations of these different males.

www.andaluciabirdsociety.org

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