Tuesday, 31 May 2016

Bizarre Magpie

From Jerry Moore - This is the bird that was reported as a rosy-breasted starling near St Davids.
At first I saw it in flight against the light and it appeared to be glowing red all over! I thought I must have been hallucinating.
When I finally got to see it properly I could see it was basically a juvenile magpie with all the white feathers coloured pink. You can also see in the photograph the blue irridescence in the ?secondaries (is that correct?) but I suspect most of its other feathers are irridescing red, as I observed when I first saw it. Anyway, it was a spectacular creature and stunningly beautiful.
Many thanks to Gail Lloyd for allowing me access to her garden!
A colony of sand martins at Freshwater West below the seaweed drying hut and a pair of swallows prospecting in a small cave nearby.