Thursday 5 April 2012

Ben's Best Find

I set off this morning in the hope of seeing & photographing the 2 Black Redstarts at the tip of Spurn. Ben didn't want to spend the morning shopping with his Grandma, so he came along too. Unfortunately, when we arrived the road was closed. We parked up at the Warren & walked as far as the Autumn breach. The road was under quite a lot of sand & there were some very large stones & very few birds of interest. The best bird we saw was a Merlin, which flew along the estuary & landed for a couple of minutes on the saltmarsh before setting off south again. We didn't have time to walk all the way to the point, so we walked back & then drove to Canal Scrape.

No one else was at Canal Scrape, and I looked for birds along the water's edge while Ben scanned the bushes with my binoculars. He soon said "There's a bird like a Shrike-thingey over there." Sure enough on snatching the binoculars I was able to confirm he had found a Great Grey Shrike. He had never seen one before. It was a long way off, but it was perched in the open before flying east to another bush. I gave it out on the radio, but a red light came on & the radio didn't appear to be working. I was about to try ringing one of the Spurn regulars when Barry Spence turned up. He had heard my message & replied, but I hadn't received his response. The Great Grey Shrike had appeared to relocate to behind Walker Butts & he went looking for it as Adam Hutt also scanned the area. It appeared to have moved on again. On a hunch I took Ben for a walk along the Canal & we were able to watch it for 20 minutes or so as it flew from bush to bush. It appeared quite flighty in the strong winds, and although we could see it well enough to identify it, we didn't get very close, which is why the pictures are only record shots.

Nevertheless, if I'd found a Great Grey Shrike at the age of 12, I'd be very pleased. I wonder how long Ben will remember this morning?

Great Grey Shrike
ditto
Great grey Shrike in flight
Great Grey Shrike being mobbed by a Reed Bunting
Merlin
Merlin
Merlin
Merlin
ditto

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, I check your blog like every week. Your humoristic style is witty, keep it up!
Also see my website - cheapest auto insurance

Anonymous said...

I'm really inspired with your writing talents and also with the structure for your blog. Is that this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself? Anyway stay up the excellent quality writing, it is rare to see a nice blog like this one today..
My website: auto insurance quotes

Anonymous said...

Heya i am for the first time here. I came across this board and I find It truly
useful & it helped me out much. I hope to give something
back and help others like you helped me.
Look at my web-site ; car insurance quotes