Shrikes

Woodchat Shrike, near Sigri

Female Red-backed Shrike, Skala Polichnitou

Male Red-backed Shrike, near Skala Polichnitou

Shrikes, shrikes, and more shrikes. We saw four species (from most common to scarcest): Red-backed, Woodchat, Masked and Lesser Grey. On a couple of days, as we drove around, we saw a Red-backed Shrike every 200m! This passage tailed off towards the end of the week.

Masked Shrikes were mainly seen in olive groves (we watched one collecting scraps of plastic for its nest), Woodchats were often sitting atop roadside bushes or on telegraph wires, and our only Lesser Grey Shrike was seen perching near a grove where dozens of Black-headed Buntings were chirping away.

Unfortunately I failed to get (m)any good photos of any of them, but we had some great shrike-watching.

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

WeedWorld

This is what Mike 'Weedon's World of Nature' Weedon came up with at the Burnham Red-backed Shrike. As we arrived, he was leaving with Bowell the Younger - to go sailing...

Norfolk again

Migrant fuel

Red-backed Shrike

Great Grey Shrike

Shrike habitat just east of Gun Hill

Storksbill sp

Darren has a 'thing' about shrikes, so when he read that there was a Red-backed AND a Great Grey at Burnham Overy, we had to go to Norfolk, of course. I'm not complaining...

Besides the two shrike species above, we had a few other bits and pieces... Garden Warblers, a Redstart, at least four Whinchats and three Wheatears, and two Peregrines in flight - in the same scope view as the Great Grey.

After lunch at the Stiffkey Red Lion (very much recommended) we tried for the Red-breasted Flycatcher at Wells Wood. And failed. Though a couple of people reckoned they'd seen it while we were there, the vast majority of would-be flycatcher watchers went home empty-handed.

Don't really care; it was a good day out.

digiscoped photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995 + Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece