Spot visitors now, before it is too late...

BLEAK TIMES FOR MANY BIRDS AS CLIMATE CHANGE TAKES ITS TOLL

- MIKE LOCKLEY

ANOTHER glorious surprise, another unexpected visitor to my parish which straddles South Staffordshire and Shropshire.

On a day bright with sunshine, perched boldly on an ancient hedgerow that has provided so many glorious birding moments, a whinchat stood to attention on an upper branch.

The prominent white stripe over the eye and orange chest immediately set it apart from the more common stonechat, which I've also encountered along the same row.

And unlike the stonechat, the whinchat is strictly a summer migrant, arriving here in April from central and southern Africa.

That was a sight to get the heart beating, and it was soon to be repeated. Three days later I spotted a dowdier female whinchat, brown, but with that tell-tale eye stripe, in the same location.

I expect both encounters to be brief and, in all likelihood, will not be repeated. They are among a number of stop-off species, including redstart and wheatear, that use the farmland around the our village as a resting place before moving to traditional nesting sites.

The crop fields serve as a motorway service station for migrant birds.

There's more chance of the whinchat raising young here than others. It is a striking bird of meadows, although it prefers upland, but I'm unaware of records of nesting locally, although there is a small breeding population on the Long Mynd, Shropshire. The two I saw were, more than likely, on their way to the species' stronghold in mid-Wales.

Those two sightings are to be treasured because the whinchat is now a rare, red listed bird. It is one of the UK species in the steepest decline, with a 60 per cent reduction in numbers from 1995 to 2022.

Website "songbird-survival" explains why the whinchat, a bird that builds its nest on the ground, is suffering so badly: "Declines in whinchat populations are attributed to changes in agricultural practices. The main driver is earlier mowing dates of grassland areas.