It was a joy to see a "spottie" today busily hawking for insects in a rather untidy farmyard not too far from here. This has always been one of my favourite birds, and for years (while I was Vicar of Minsterley) we had one nesting in Virginia creeper just outside my study window. It is a late arrival, one of the last of our summer visitors, and, as a somewhat dull brown and grey bird of sparrow size, you might think unremarkable in appearance.
What makes it distinctive is its behaviour. It is a very lively little creature, often perching on a vantage point (today, a piece of farm machinery) from which it can survey the area around and fly in pursuit of a passing insect. Often it will return straight away to the same perch. The bill of this bird is worthy of note, I always think, although in many ways this is a bird of nondescript appearance: it's dark in colour, as slim as a stiletto and just as deadly (if you're insect sized, at any rate).
I saw lots of stylish and often brightly coloured flycatchers in South America, but the "spottie" is one of only two species of flycatcher likely to be seen in the UK - the other, the pied flycatcher, arrives before the "spotties" and is a woodland specialist not uncommon these days on the western side of the country - though I did hear of one visiting a garden feeding station in Snailbeach, not far from here, and popped up to have a look (the bird duly arrived, and used the station as a perch from which to conduct operations). Being a male, it was clothed in very stylish black and white. There is also the rarer red-breasted flycatcher which is seen as a passage migrant - generally along the east coast, but they can turn up elsewhere, and Ann and I found one sitting on a rock at the top of the beach just outside Llanfairfechan. I'm not a twitcher with a tick list and an urgent need to bag rarities, but even so I was quite unreasonably pleased to have spotted this little chap.
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