Attempted tweet

Took a walk along the fine new walkway along the east cliff at Lyme Regis yesterday. A fine, bright morning.

A very wet, grey cliff washing away as we watched. But we also came across a small bird, not seen before, but very striking. Between a robin and a thrush in size, with a very bright orange-brown breast and a mainly black head. Striped, I think, with white. Sitting on a low bush at the bottom of the cliff, with a concrete parapet between it and us. Did not fly away until we were quite close, say less than ten feet.

My investigation turns up three possibilities, all new to me: the redstart, the stonechat and the whinchat. Redstart looks the best bet. Stonechat marked down for small size and for breast not being as striking in the pictures as that seen. Whinchat marked up for striped head, marked down for size and for being out of season. I find feeding Bing or Google a few clues - in this case 'bird brown breast black head' - and then taking a look at the images turned up a good way to start - but I have clearly got a little way to go yet on bird identification.

I go with redstart, but I do not claim it as a tweet. Not yet, anyway.

Reference 1, from the Royal Geographical Society, provides a good introduction to the geology and to the new walkway.

Reference 1: https://www.discoveringbritain.org/content/discoveringbritain/viewpoint%20pdfs/Black%20Ven%20viewpoint.pdf.