Common Redstarts Phoenicurus phoenicurus have a broad, almost exclusively insectivorous diet. For example, in my own studies in a pine forest at 255 m asl in eastern Bohemia, Czech Republic, between 1994 and 1997, I found the food delivered to nestling Common Redstarts by their parents to consist mainly of sawfly larvae (Symphyta, Hymenoptera; 26%), spiders (Araneae; 20%) and butterfly or moth caterpillars (Lepidoptera; 19%) (own unpublished data). A great number of other species were found in the diet, such as millipedes (Diplopoda), beetles (Coleoptera), bush-crickets (Orthoptera) and shieldbugs (Hemiptera). A newborn Bank Vole Clethrionomys glareolus was also recorded being fed to the nestlings (Porkert & Љpinka 2002), as were Bilberry Vaccinium myrtillus fruits in a nest provisioned by a single parent (Porkert & Љpinka 2005).
Common Redstart provisioning chicks with antlion larvae
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