Stonechat and Whinchat

I had just under half an hour spare between it getting light and having to get sorted for work. Taking the camera with me in hope of getting some half-decent footage, I set off around 7am. After setting up on one of the quieter paths across the Pit Tip Top, I didn't have to wait long before a bird resembling a Stonechat popped up onto the protruding seed heads. This bird looked similar to the bird seen yesterday, but with a well-defined pale patch around the collar, and only a slight eye stripe, suggesting it was a first winter Stonechat. After ten minutes of fiddling around without getting anything in focus, the bird disappeared.

I packed up, walked along the path closer to where it was last seen, and flushed another bird out to a nearer perch. After a few minutes of good views with the bins, I began to think that this was the bird I'd seen yesterday and not the Stonechat I'd just seen. It lacked the well-defined pale collar patch, but - more notably - had a long and well-defined thin dark eye stripe. I dug the camera out for some footage, and did a quick attempt at vidibinning in the hope of getting a few stills. Despite hand-holding both the camera and the bins, I had enough for a few 'record shot' stills. Walking back I got the best views of what looked very good for a first winter Whinchat, and this was later confirmed by several experienced birders from the images. The thing that confused me was the wing panel, but apparently this is exhibited by some birds of a certain age/sex.