Wicked

It couldn't really happen, could it? There's no way I'd miss seeing Waxwings during their greatest irruption for some say 20 years. Well of course! The girlfriend and I finally connected with the Tibshelf massive which were hanging out in a school car park, up to nine birds while we were there but as many as 22 at other times. They were gorging on the fruiting trees, shared with not terrible hospitality with the local Mistle Thrushes and one Fieldfare.

Elsewhere in the county there are reports of more than 200 Waxwings in Ilkeston, which gives a handle on the kinds of numbers that have hit the UK this winter. Flocks of 1000+ in Scotland.
The girlfriend thinks they're plumage recalls some kind of exotic foreign dress, not a million miles away from geisha costume. That's one description of them I can certainly abide with.

While I type a glance out of the patio window here at my parents' house and I see 11 Blackbirds which is a probable record for the half tennis court or so of garden out there. 4 inches of snow and they've downed all arms, as they should in winter, almost tolerating one another - save for one really pissed off territorial male.

Had planned to volunteer at the Carsington ABB tomorrow, doesn't look like the weather will allow this.

Here's a video of the Waxwings shot by the girlfriend...

Be sure to select the HQ option in the bottom right corner or it'll look like the bad bootleg copy of the original. Better yet, you can select a High Definition version here. Listen out for their call too.


Happy birdwatching everybody, it's back to flatpack furniture for me.

Spot the Christmas cliche

Had quite a bit on my plate of late so birding has taken rather back seat for the last few weeks. A spot of local patching today though, with an Egyptian Goose providing some interest at Sutton Lawn. GS Woodpecker, Goldfinch, L-T Tits, Sparrowhawk, etc, the usual suspects, but as yet no Brambling there this winter - usually the park is dependable for small numbers, but zip all as yet, not many Chaffinches either for that matter.
What else? Oh dear reader, if you haven't seen a Waxwing yet this winter then that makes at least two of us. Seems everybody else has been enjoying their current irruption, so don't stop looking now!

Merry Christmas bird fans.

"Some days you are the bird...

...other days you are the statue." ~ Ricky Gervais

Forgot to post this earlier, yes that's the Steppe Grey Shrike, yes on my head. That's not photo-shopped by the way, that version features Britney Spears.
Anyway, good news of a sort after analysis of those feathers discovered on site after the Shrike's disappearance found they did not belong to our bird. So the imagination is set free, you can decide for yourself what happened to certainly my Bird of the Year, and many other people's too I'm sure.

How delightful, a pair of Stock Dove outside my window, pecking around beneath the bird table.

Short of disaster we should be moving house soon, The new garden is full of trees; apple, pear, cherry, birch, plus various fruiting shrubs. Ought to be one way to avoid piling on the mileage to get our birdwatching done.

Gone, but never to be forgotten

Last video and final words on the Steppe Grey Shrike, as news came today of only feathers being found in the area the bird had been favouring. I saw a Merlin work the ditches myself while on site, Peregrine and Hen Harrier were around too, among commoner predators, so chances are it was snatched by a raptor. A sad demise for an amazing bird, but what a bird!

(By the way, that certainly wasn't me feeding the bird corned beef!)

Shrike: A Pose

Steppy again, perched on my scope.

No report of the bird today, although midweek birders may have been thin on the ground with the rainy forecast. One theory for why the bird looks so untidy goes that its native habitat are the arid plains of areas like Kazahkstan, leaving this bird naturally unaccustomed to hunting for prey in wet grass. As good a theory as any I suppose, particularly as I read in the Lincolnshire Bird Club forum a list of discoveries found in one of the shrike's pellets:

Remains of at least 11 Pterostichus melanarius (Carabidae – ground beetle family)
Remains of at least 3 Pterostichus niger (Carabidae)
Remains of 1 Ocypus olens (Devil’s coach horse beetle – Staphylinidae/rove beetles)
One aedeagus (male sexual organ) of Catops tristis (Coleoptera – Leiodidae)
Remains of unidentified species of beetle elytra (wing cases)
Miscellaneous heads of non-Coleoptera invertebrates (possibly Diptera)
Heads of two different species of possible Lepidoptera

So beetles basically, which makes sense for a bird smaller than our voracious Great Greys.

Tail Spin

Shall be moving house fairly soon with my new home closely neighouring the nature reserve at Pleasley. The garden is full with established trees and potentially poses a squirrel problem for my bird feeders. Not a worry though, the solution is out there, and it's highly amusing...



...or perhaps not. Better advice may come from the RSPB - put chilli powder in your seed mix.

Speaking of mixes, a nice mix of birds during yesterday's Carsington ABB where we hit 40 different species from the Wildlife Centre for the first time for quite a while. A Kingfisher was the star for most visitors, plus the Great Northern Diver - these winters Carsington wouldn't be Carsington without one of those.

Steppe To It

Location, location, location.

Broke my 50-mile local twitch limit yesterday, but surely worth it for one of the rarest and showiest birds to hit Britain all year. Over the last few years I've had maybe half a dozen Great Grey Shrike sightings, almost always at a range of 100 yards or so, try to comprehend therefore how it felt to have a Steppe Grey Shrike land on my head - I'm still trying myself.
To briefly explain Steppe Grey Shrike is either a different species or different race (in taxonomy terms these birds are rather in the wild west*) to the very similar the Great Greys, just a touch paler in one of two places . We see perhaps 50-100 GGS during the winter in the UK, however the Steppes breed much further east than Greys - from N Iran across to Uzbekistan and should spend their winters in the tropics well east of us. Now human habitation is sparse in these areas so the Steppe Grey Shrike is a bird that should seldom come across mankind and therefore the birds seem to have developed no fear of us. Hence pictures of this one on people's scopes, cameras, cars, heads, etc.
It's only the second or third record of Steppe Grey Shrike in the last ten years, and a real treat still drawing in good crowds into its third week of residence in the Lincs flatlands south of Grimsby. Likelihood is this is probably the most photographed bird.... ever.

In some birding circles concerns raised have been raised over birders and photographers chasing this bird which too high a vigour, but truly it is more a case of the bird following us - maybe it believes we'll stir up worms or beetles. The temptation therefore is to feed it, not something I'd personally want to do - I reason it's been there 3 weeks now and been seen to find its own food which is probably healthier all round than anything people could give it.

Hogging the eyepiece

Also picked up a Grey Pharalope at Covenham Reservoir on that long drive home, another highly confiding thoughie.

Rates as the best birding day the girlfriend and I have ever had. Peregrine, Merlin, tonnes of winter thrushes and Curlews, Brent Geese all fly-overs while we tried not to step on the Steppe, plus a Barn Owl near miss (phew!) on the way back. Videos to post soon.

*technically, the species we're dealing with here appears to be a Southern Grey Shrike