The first wheatears have returned to the islands, and chiffchaffs and willow warblers are beginning to pass through on their spring journeys. ❋ Unknown (2011)
To my delight, when I visited I discovered several wheatears, along with another passage migrant, the whinchat, all feeding to build up their fat reserves before undertaking the epic journey south to Africa. ❋ Unknown (2011)
The first migrant was a pair of wheatears and, as always, I was surprised at just how colourful they look, especially the male, with the blue-grey back, black wings and orange flush on the breast. ❋ Unknown (2011)
In addition there is an impressive spring migration of swifts, larks and wheatears, together with a wide range of raptors. ❋ Unknown (2008)
Steppe representatives include typical species such as lark (5 species), wheatears, pipits, as well as numerous other unusual and rare species (Chettusia gregaria, Otis tetrax, Anthropoides virgo, Circus macrourus, Сircus pygargus, Aquila rapax). ❋ Unknown (2008)
They went to the Rhine and Lake District in 1794 and later made tours in Southern England, during which her beloved dog Chance chased wheatears on the beach. ❋ Unknown (2008)
An hour later, just as the smock was finished and the boys were gone to get tea ready, the shepherd entered at the gate carrying a quantity of wheatears threaded on crow-quills. ❋ Various (N/A)
"John, you are a greedy man, and Jack is not lazy; he does not approve of killing birds; he thinks it is cruel, that is why he has not seen to the traps, so you must not scold him about it, will you?" said Fairy, looking up into the shepherd's grave face, as she stroked the white breasts of the wheatears. ❋ Various (N/A)
"Why, again Jack has forgotten to attend to those traps for the wheatears; when I did them myself I caught a hundred in one day; now I leave them to him I get perhaps eighteen to twenty, because he is too lazy to dig out the turf and make the traps properly; here are only ten brace this evening, and they are as plentiful as sparrows just now." ❋ Various (N/A)
Although wheatears are no longer caught, the Brighton bird-catcher is a very busy man. ❋ E.V. Lucas (N/A)
On bright clear days few birds would be caught, but in showery weather the traps would all be full; this is because when the sun is obscured wheatears are afraid and take refuge under stones or in whatever hole may offer. ❋ E.V. Lucas (N/A)
The capture of wheatears -- mostly illegally by nets -- still continues in a very small way to meet a languid demand, but the Sussex ortolan, as the little bird was sometimes called, has passed from the bill of fare. ❋ E.V. Lucas (N/A)
One is the decrease in wheatears, another the protection of the bird by law, and a third the refusal of the farmers to allow their men any longer to neglect the flocks by setting and tending snares. ❋ E.V. Lucas (N/A)
The wheatears flirted their black and white persons over the rocks, the gulls dipped and wheeled, planed past them on level wings, uttering their harsh cries, or for a flashing moment rested so close that the blot of blood-red above their curved yellow beaks showed vividly; out to sea a gannet hung a sheer two hundred feet in air, then dropped, beak downwards .... ❋ F. Tennyson Jesse (N/A)
But in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries, wheatears were taken on the ❋ E.V. Lucas (N/A)
'As soon as he was off-horse Fulke went to the chapel with Gilbert to give thanks for his safe coming, and when he had eaten -- he was a fat man, and rolled his eyes greedily at our good roast Sussex wheatears -- we led him to the little upper chamber, whither Gilbert had already gone with the Manor-roll. ❋ Rudyard Kipling (1900)
Redwings, wheatears, peewits, and airy kestrels are the people of their skies. ❋ Maurice Hewlett (1892)
Here, too, the burrows had probably existed first and had attracted the wheatears, and the birds had brought the seed from some distant bush. ❋ Unknown (1881)
The only creatures on earth I loathe and hate are the gourmets, the carrion-crows and foxes of the human kind who devour wheatears and skylarks at their tables. ❋ Unknown (1881)
It then occurred to me that in every case where I had observed a clump of elder bushes on the bare downside, it grew upon a village or collection of rabbit burrows, and it is probable that in every case the clump owed its existence to the wheatears who had dropped the seed about their nesting-place. ❋ Unknown (1881)
