Man Sands - Sun 20 Nov

An out and out twitch today as I headed off for south Devon late morning and a drive down to Man Sands, a few miles south of Brixham. I parked in a National Trust car park at the top of the valley and walked down a steep track to the beach and soon found the Coastguard Cottages and a few other birders. After a wait of less than a minute my target bird popped up on to the roof of the cottage and showed really well. It was a cracking male Desert Wheatear.

I watched the bird for the next twenty minutes or so. It was occasionally in the company of a Rock Pipit and I also had a quick view of a Black Redstart. As I had left Ellie at home today I did not hang around for long and set off back up the track to the car, seeing a Stonechat along the way. The walk back to the car was certainly hard work, but it was certainly worth it. A UK tick for me, the last Desert Wheatear I saw was in Israel!
UK list for 2011 now at 262 species.