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There is something about a Wryneck


Yesterday I decided to spend the day photographing Autumn migrants. The beauty of watching and photographing passage migrants in Autumn is that they have a tendency to stay in one location for much longer than in the spring when they are in a great rush to get to their breeding grounds.

My first port of call was Sutton Coldfield NNR where a stunning adult male Red-backed Shrike had taken up residence. I left home somewhat late for me around 06:30 and made my way along the M40 and 42 arriving on site some 90 minutes later. I parked, as instructed by RBA, near the model aircraft flying site and followed OS locate to the stated map reference. Having never been to this site before I was surprised by its size and location, 2400 green acres just 6 miles north of the centre of Birmingham. It boasts quite a varied mixed habitat with a large lake, green parkland spaces and heath like terrain with gorse and scrub interspaced with clumps of trees. Being such a green retreat surrounded by so much urban wasteland I was somewhat surprised that it has not hosted more rarities in the past.

The Red-backed Shrike has been more or less lost to the UK as a breeding bird and is now seen, mainly in the autumn, on migration from continental Europe to its African wintering grounds. Occasionally a pair still breed in the UK as was the case in Shetland this year where a pair successfully fledged young.

The Red-backed shrike is an expected annual tick for me and, indeed, I have seen them already this autumn at Spurn and Flamborough head, but these were females and juveniles.  It’s the stunning looking adult male, however, which really rocks my boat with its bluish-grey head, black mask (giving it the nickname the bandit bird), bright chestnut back and thick hooked black bill.

The  map reference location looked like typical Shrike habitat with lots of low lying scrubby bushes. Shrikes are one of the easier bird species to find when present due to their habit of using exposed branches as vantage points to locate and drop down on unsuspecting invertebrates. Sure enough after a short wait the masked bandit flew in and posed for the small number of birders present. Wow- what an absolutely stunning bird!!




After 30 minutes or so it moved on so I had a walk around the park where, notably, there were good numbers of Redstarts and Spotted Flycatchers, the latter being a very belated year tick for me.

Come midmorning I decided to make a move to my second port of call of the day, Spurn point east of Hull over the Humber river. Two hours or so of driving interspaced with a stop for my sandwich lunch saw me arrive at Spurn just after 13:00 to look for my target bird, the Wryneck. No birding Autumn is now complete for me without at least one sighting of this my favourite UK bird. The Wryneck is again a passage migrant  to the UK seen mainly in early autumn and there were reports of 3 birds at Spurn including one very confiding one. My black belt birding neighbour Mick was already at Spurn and gave me some  good location details.  I had a strong sense of deja vu from my recent trip to see a Blyth's Reed Warblerl as, when I arrived at the stated location, a photographer attempted to point the bird out for me. I looked but could not immediately see it and then realised I was looking much too far away; it was literality sitting in a bush right next to the road some 6 feet away.!






Wrynecks are members of the woodpecker family and share the habit of our resident Green Woodpecker of feeding almost exclusively on ants. This little chap was alternating his time between sitting in the bush and dropping down to the verge where, I guess at least, it had found an ants nest. I simply love the cryptic plumage of the Wryneck, not garishly in your face brightly coloured but a subtle and beautifully palette of browns, fawn and cream perfect for the necessary camouflage in its woodland continental breed grounds.





I also had a look for at Spurn for a rather elusive Barred Warbler, which would have been a year tick for me, around the Warren but did not locate it. 

I left around 16:30 for the 4 hour drive home with a smug feeling of mission accomplished!

Since my last blog I have also visited the local ridgeway twice, a reliable location this time of year for passage Wheatears and Whinchats. I have seen up to twenty or so Wheatears in one go in previous years on the ridgeway lined up on fence posts and barbed wire dropping down to pick up insects from the green grass of the gallops. The numbers were a little down on that peak this year but there were still more than enough to keep me entertained for a couple of hours. I also found a family of Yellow Wagtails, which had presumably breed locally, picking insects off of one of the local stables muck heaps.



I walk around Dix Pit early most morning with the dogs and the past week or so has seen the hirundines, mainly Sand and House Martins, gathering in large post breeding flocks stocking up on the copious supply of midges before commencing their long and arduous journey back to their African wintering grounds. I day dreamed about our wonderful trip to Kenya last Autumn, where many of these superb acrobats will spend the winter, and rather sadly longed to be back there this autumn. How the world has changed in an unbelievable and tragic way in the few short months since our wonderful African vacation last year.


Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!

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