Patch Eastern Delight

Personally I put very little effort into the patch in 2019, and with there being fewer active local birders these days it’s now seriously underwatched. I’d like to do better in 2020, but then I always say that. A few stalwarts plug away, and every so often one of them deservedly stumbles on a good local bird. It’s of course very rare that we get a proper ‘BB rarity’, and when we do it’s invariably of the quacking or wading waterbird kind. I’d often wondered if we would ever get a passerine BB rarity, but it’s always seemed fanciful. As far as I know the only one ever was an Alpine Swift seen by Manc birder James Walsh in 1998, and that’s not even a proper passerine.

So Dave Bedford definitely struck patch gold (what a rubbish phrase that is) on Christmas Eve, when he found an Eastern Stonechat on Ashton’s Flash. It later transpired that both Greg and Malc had seen it earlier, but quite understandably had assumed it was a common stonechat.

Given the date it was likely to stay, but I was a little frustrated when I failed to connect in brief windows on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day. It was 27th December before my apparently hectic life allowed more concerted effort.

The stonechat had often been elusive, disappearing into the depths of Ashton’s for hours on end, so it took me over an hour to see it with a small group of birders from the bund bench. Views were ok if a little distant on 27th, but much better on 1st Jan. Separating the two (current) species of Eastern Stonechat - Siberian (maurus) and Stejneger’s - is difficult, often impossible, in the field and still requires a DNA sample, although it seems likely that criteria will emerge and stabilise following the split (a word I seem to use more and more). Hopefully DNA will be obtained, but it’s no mean feat to collect one from out there. Think Tolkien’s Dead Marsh from Lord of the Rings and you’re about right.

It’s a first winter male with a face mask just starting to appear, a clearly defined white throat and crucially black underwing axillaries (visible on photos). The peach rump is remarkably extensive, and the overall colour of the bird seemed generally frosty (although would shift with the light), which favour maurus, and there don’t appear to be any darker markings on the rump which are apparently pro-Stejneger’s. The latter could be expected to be perhaps darker overall. The warmth of the underparts could favour Stejneger’s, but could also be that the bird is starting to attain adult colours. It’ll be interesting to see how it changes if it remains a while. So the consensus is it’s likely to be Siberian Stonechat, but it would still be preferable to resolve it in the lab.