Red Breasted Flycatcher, Orcombe Point Devon

I visited the fields around Orcambe Point again today, the third time in 24 hours and spent another 4 hours waiting for the Wryneck that has been seen and photographed by just about everyone in Devon now! Except me that is!!!!. It really is my bogey bird and I just can't seem to have any luck whatsoever. My good friend Dave Land rang me to say that it was showing really well this morning and he was taking photos of it right then and from just a few feet in front of him! I got myself dressed and left almost immediately and I was there within 35 minutes. It had just disappeared after apparently posing beautifully for at least an hour! I waited and waited but again I was unfortunate. I am quite deflated about this to be honest. As I made my way down the track towards Dave who was in the spot where he had just taken some stunning photographs, I saw a lovely Wheatear on the edge of the cliff in very perfect light and of course I had to stop and photograph it. Amazingly there has been a Red-breasted Flycatcher (Ficedula parka) as well, showing really well, not too far from the Wrynecks stamping ground. I hadn't seen this species before until today so I it was a good day all in all. This species is slightly smaller than the European Robin and is an interesting little bird that does not breed the UK. It is described as a breeding bird in Eastern Europe and Asia but I note that it does breed in the west, both in Norway and Finland as well as Germany, Poland and numerous countries in Eastern Europe and the Baltic Countries .

I stood amongst the other birders and photographers who had all see this little rare bird before me of course! Eventually it was seen in exactly the same spot as earlier and I caught sight of it too! Success at last. The conditions for photography were just about as bad as they could be, too distant and almost shooting in to the sun with a heat shimmer to compound the problems so rubbish photographs but a I did get record shot of my 211th species photographed in Devon. Visit my gallery here. My 211 Devon Bird species.