Wheatear

This week has seen our first records of Wheatears this spring. It is a summer visitor to northern Europe, but mainly a passage migrant in Kent. In the UK birds breed mainly in western and northern Britain and western Ireland, although smaller numbers do breed in southern and eastern England. It winters in central Africa. Usually the first birds appear in March in the south east, but this year, due to the anti-cyclone doggedly stuck over us for several weeks the reached Kent rather late, although other parts of the UK had better numbers.