Success with my redstarts

FOR the 2021 breeding season, I managed to acquire two pairs of unrelated common redstarts. They had been kept separate through the winter but in adjacent flights and remained outside during the winter even through all the cold and harsh weather we had. It turned out to be a very cold winter and a cold spring, yet both pairs - in fact all my migrant softbills - were kept outside, with no ill effect. The one exception was my yellow wagtails, which I did keep in a spacious cage inside the birdroom.

I have bred redstarts before and it’s a great sense of an achievement when you are successful with them. They are not the easiest birds to breed, yet on the other hand some can be straightforward. With softbills, so much depends on the nature or aggressiveness of the individual bird. As an example, in 2021 my wheatear hen, when introduced to the cock, was like