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| Wryneck |
Autumn migration kicked off in earnest at the weekend with good numbers of common and scarce migrants plus the odd rarity at the usual migration hotspots. I hence planned a layback days birding on Tuesday without the usual twitch pressure of trying to get a UK tick. The east coast was the obvious destination but I was torn between Norfolk and Yorkshire. In the end I went for Spurn as everything is quite spread out on slow narrow roads in Norfolk and I wanted to maximise my birding time.
Continuing my grumpy old bugger theme of some recent posts, I knew that multiple road works were going to wind me up and sure enough 8 sets of major works on route added an hour to how long the drive used to take me. All but one had average speed cameras and 4 long sections, including most of a 50 mile stretch on the M1, were the result of the shambles caused by the department of transport turning 3 lane motorways into 4 lane death traps for anyone stupid enough to break down. Current moan over but to be continued no doubt!
A fall of migrants had occurred over the weekend at Spurn with multiple rare Greenish Warblers, scarce Red backed Shrikes and Wrynecks and lots of commoner migrants reported.
I parked up next to the church fields at Spurn and walked the short distance to the ringing hut where a Greenish Warbler had been intermittently reported. This is one of the complex of three very similar small green Phylloscopus leaf warblers, the other two being the Green and Two-barred Greenish. These leaf warblers are sulky little so and so’s spending, as their name implies, most of the time in the canopy only occasionally showing. With this in mind and given that I already have all 3 on my Uk list I had decided to spend no more than 30 minutes looking for the Church Fields bird. As a case in point, a few years back I spent 2 days staring at some bushes for a ten second view of my only UK Green Warbler.
The Church Fields warbler had not been seen for several hours so I soon gave up on it and walked over the road towards the estuary for a leisurely walk along the so called canal path. As I crossed the road another birder pointed out a somewhat distant Honey Buzzard over the estuary, my first encounter with this migrant raptor for 6 years.
Along the canal path the hedge rows were teeming with migrant birds making a refuelling stop, Redstarts, Wheatears, Whinchats and Spotted and Pied Flycatchers. Subjectively, I would say this is the most of these migrating birds I have ever encountered in one place, every hedgerow seemed to have at least one or two Redstarts dropping down from perches to pick up insects in the long grass. I marvelled at the arduous journey these tiny avian jewels were about to undertake with most of them heading to Africa for their winter holidays. Given that there are year round insects in Africa, it may seem strange that evolution has favoured migration but the abundance of spring insects and the very long summer days compared to Africa must clearly yield a significant evolutionary advantage . This abundance of attractive birds is an east coast autumn speciality and one to be enjoyed at length so I was certainly in no hurry whatsoever stopping numerous times to watch and enjoy the birds through my scope. The hedgerow was a little distant for photography but here are a few record shots.
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| Spotted Flycatcher |
I was also looking for two scarcer birds that had been reported in the canal path hedge row, namely a Red-backed Shrike and a Wryneck. The Shrike, a first winter bird, was soon located in some hawthorn bushes near the Spurn discovery centre. It spent most of the rest of the day perched in these bushes, occasionally showing well. While perhaps lacking the razmataz of the spectacularly attired male adult, it nonetheless was a very attractive bird in its own right with its chestnut brown streaked crown and back offsetting its white chest. The tale of the Red-backed Shrike in the UK is a familiar and sad one. It used to be a common migratory visitor to Great Britain but numbers declined sharply during the 20th century. In the early part of this century there were a very small number of successful breeding attempts leading to some optimism that the Shrike may recolonised the UK assisted by a warming climate. Since then, however, breeding has been confirmed on only two occasions, both in Shetland , in 2015 and 2020.
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| The Spurn first winter Red-backed Shrike |
An adult male taken at a different location a few years back
Wrynecks can be ridiculously confiding birds but this one was feeding in very long grass and only showing occasionally when it perched up on a fence or bush. I only caught a glimpse of it dropping into the tall vegetation and as such was a little disappointed not to get a good view of one of my very favourite birds. I was told that this bird had once perched so close to the Shrike that they started to peck each other. This seemed to me a rather risky thing for the Wryneck to do as Shrikes are ruthless predators and are definitely quite capable of taking a small bird.
At 2pm my rumbling stomach told me a late lunch was due and I made my way back to my car for a Sandwich. After lunch I had another unsuccessful look for the Greenish Warbler and then made my way back along the canal intent on getting a better view of the Wryneck. After 30 minutes of so with no sign a report came in of a Wryneck on the rocks at Easington below the oil refinery. In this habitat it was clearly going to be a much easier bird to see so I set off back to the car for the short drive. I parked in the square and made my way towards the Oil refinery. I stupidly had not realised that another Greenish Warbler was present in the hedge leading down to the beach so I spent 20 minutes with a small group of birders trying to see it again with no luck. Another birder present showed me a lovely picture of the Wryneck on the rocks so I abandoned the seemingly futile search for the warbler and headed to the beach. The Wryneck was not where it had been first seen and after 30 minutes of searching it seemed that I was destined not to get a proper view of one today when someone else spotted it flying along the rocks where it did exactly what it says on the tin and obligingly stood still while those present rattled off photographs of this little beauty.
Wrynecks are members of the woodpecker family and share the habit of our resident Green Woodpecker of feeding almost exclusively on ants. 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.
The Wryneck flew along the beach, and with the early autumn light starting to fade, I made my way back to the car. A lady from the Spurn observatory was still looking for the warbler but decided to go and look for the Wryneck. Just as she was leaving she refound the Greenish Warbler in a tree and I was treated to the usual 5 second view of what was my second UK view of this bird.
I made my way back to the car in a very upbeat mood very contented that I had seen all my target birds for the day. Even a 30 minute diversion on the way home through the delights of Birmingham due to an inevitable motorway closure didn’t damping my spirits.
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