Successful Shrike Hunting in Suffolk

At about half past four on Thursday I refreshed the bird news page once again. Shit. 50 short-eared owls in-off at Titchwell, yellow-browed warblers in every patch of coastal scrub between Shoebury Ness and The Wash, and shrikes - shrikes everywhere. It was clear that a decent easterly blow had produced good birds right along the east cost. My mind was made up, and Friday duly booked off.

The plan, hastily formed, was to hit Minsmere for red-flanked bluetail and sausages, then either bash the scrub down to Sizewell and back or head wherever the news said was worth going. Apart from red-flanked bluetail, the main target bird was a shrike sp - we didn't care too much which one as shrikes are all amazing - and we weren't picky enough to insist on self-found, either.

The drive up was awful, with traffic almost everywhere between Grays and Colchester, but the benefit of arriving late is that the birds you've aimed to twitch are pre-found and nailed down, though hopefully not literally. Not much more than ten minutes after parking we were in position in some bushes north of the sluice, with the red-flanked bluetail picking about around our feet. Remember last life-tick, (well, the one before last, the sabine's gull) when I made out that it was pretty unusual for a life bird to be so obliging? Yeah, turns out that it might not be that unusual. This bird was awesome. It was doing big, predictable circuits of the scrub, coming nice and close each time, and the trick was to just stand and wait. Shortly after we arrived, Lee Evans himself did (ZOMG), complete with amazingly tacky dangly cross earring worn without the merest hint of irony, so we knew we were in the right place watching the right bird. Thank fuck for that. The bluetail alone would have made the trip worthwhile and while it wasn't (and presumably still isn't) a shrike, birds from this point on were all a bit of a bonus.

Having had our fill we retired to the cafe for a fill of sausages and bacon (picking up bearded tit on the way) before heading back to the sluice for some sea and scrub watching. Brent geese were moving south in groups anywhere up to 40 strong with a couple of arctic terns and common scoter for good measure but it was otherwise quite quiet. A single great skua with broken legs and damaged wings passed by slowly, mobbing gulls in attendance, with what was probably a second great and a couple of small skua sps that were too far out to ID with any confidence. Finally, our seawatch target appeared - a short-eared owl - heading slowly but strongly south. A small group gathered to watch the owl, and once it had dissapeared into the haze a man casually remarked that a couple of hundred metres down the coast a long-eared owl was sitting in a gorse bush, right next to the path. Long-eared owl is was my most annoying "bogey" bird so I didn't hold out much hope for this one, but on arriving at the bush the bird was obvious even without optics. And it was brilliant.

Buggered bonxie

Bird of the day? Yeah, bird of the day.

The scrub along the coast didn't produce more than a dusting of stonechats and goldcrests, so we opted to head up to Westleton Heath for the great grey shrike. A quick look at the scrape on the way in gave us waders - spotted redshank (learnt a new flight call there), knot, grey plover, godwits, dunlin, etc - and a handful of totally tickable red-breasted geese with the equally tickable barnacles. I wonder how I'd have felt about the red-breasteds if I'd seen them just offshore or sitting distantly on the levels with some brents, as they had been earlier, rather than knocking about the scrape with the barnacles?

Westleton Heath was unfortunately shrikeless. However, while we were watching half a dozen dartford warblers, a tweet from David Bradnum alerted us to an isabelline shrike just down the road at Dunwich Heath. The dartfords were quickly forgotten, despite their best efforts at holding our attention.

After some initial confusion that saw most people arriving at the twitch, us included, powering accross the heath on the wrong path, we finally got our shrike sp - and a damn good one at that:

Isabelline shrike, ssp isabellinus, so "daurian shrike".

Better photos of the day's rarities - the bluetail, long-eared owl and the shrike - are here.

I don't really know what else to write. Read the other post too. It's really shit and will reflect positively upon this one.

"Yup, it's definitely a shrike"