OK that makes sense, I suspect it might have come over from the continent. However Kent is the one place that they are resident, although in winter the non-residents spread around the English coasts more.
UK has less than 50 breeding pairs (that varies each year) but numbers of 100’s come over for winter.
Your photo looks like a female
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I’ve dug out our copy of the RSPB Britain’s Birds book and I think it looks more like a juvenile male. I had no idea just how rare they are.
Yep, could be, females & juveniles look similar looking at the books.
I’ve only seen M & F & only separately & at a time when no juveniles around.
The resident robin was none too pleased to see the Redstart this morning, it kept trying to shoo it off. Hopefully the Redstart will not have gone for good
Hope your Redstart returns… We have acquired a “Guard Robin” below our feeder that won’t allow Dunnocks in for the fallen nut pieces. He’s very obliging and somewhat puffed up now against the cold…
Wish I had a Black Redstart though !
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The Redstart is back again this morning but the robin is most definitely not impressed!
I remember a few years ago a male Blackcap arrived at out feeders in December and was so determined to keep hold of the food source he wouldn’t let anything on at all, spent most of each day chasing everything else off whatever the size!
He was there for a couple of months. Very territorial
Glad the Redstart’s back 
I spent three weeks in September observing and photographing the amazing Ruby-throated hummingbirds in our yard. I sat for hours on a low stool under the Hawthorn tree where their feeder was hanging, balancing the hand-held heavy D810 and its 300mm f/4 lens.
The autofocus of the lens was completely useless with the super-fast fliers so it took a lot of practice and quite a bit of luck to achieve an optimal sharpness.
Hummingbirds can fly backwards or hover in one spot. They achieve that with a symmetrical figure of 8 wing stroke
Between feedings which have to take place every 30 minutes in day time there is plenty of grooming.
After a while everyone was bonding with me, the bees and the birds though they had some disagreements among themselves about who had the first right to the sugar water.
They are all gone now, packed their bags and flew to Mexico or Central America. Can’t wait for them to be back.
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Awesome pictures and Mother Nature giving you some joy !!!
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Fab pics Haim!
Been tuning in occasionally to some hummer’s via YouTube live streams, as a way of entertainment in the lockdown.Hummers are one of my favourite birds, with Bee Hummingbird and Booted Racket-tail high on my bucket list. Nice to see natural images as most are with flash for freezing movement, but the tend to over do the colour far in excess of the small flashes seen in real life.
I did manage to photograph a hummer feeding her chick in Arizona a couple of years ago, probably easier as She was not moving much. Just wish we had Hummers in the UK
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Now you’re really rubbing it in !
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Why not give them food directly on your hands?
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Thanks. I started shooting with a flash (first picture) but abandoned it real fast. I achieved more depth and better colors with daylight, especially when the sun was low during the mornings and afternoons. This is my favorite image in terms of light, bucking the sun late in the evening:
I was lucky that the little guy kept his body parallel to the 810’s leaving him in focus from beak to tail. I settled on shutter speeds between 1/1000 and 1/1600 with my shots trying to maintain some blur of the wings and get a sense of movement. Most of the shots were at f/9 and the ISO varied from 320 to 1200 depending on the conditions. The camera and the lens were set in full manual mode all the time.
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Next spring I will get one of these hand feeders and we shall see what happens. The girl in your picture has one too:
It takes a long time and plenty of patience for the little guys to land on your hand though they were comfortable already hovering close to me when I was re-hanging the feeder. They say that it is easier to convince them to eat off your hand if you take down the other feeders and become their only source but I am not planning on doing that.
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Very nice! I must be quite magical
Hi Haim
Well I think that’s an absolute corker of a shot, easily publishable, I’d put a copyright on it!
Full Manual mode is obviously the way to go when you have a predictable/repeatable flight path, and the light is steady. Not freezing the wings to much gives the sense of movement but still retains enough detail so show the form of the wings. A joy to view…thanks., Inspired to go out tomorrow with a camera… but heavy rain all day.
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