Having a Butcher's

Ridiculousness. Complete and utter unbelievable ridiculousness. And no, I don't mean the fact that I'm writing a blog again. Again, no, it's not that I've actually been busy with college, and work since last I related a tale to you all. The sheer crazy, is this really happening??ness stems instead from... please sit down for this... birding.  Actual birding. Okay, maybe twitching, but still, birds were, or rather a bird was involved.  And it was this bird that caused, for many people, a state of flabbergasted awe. Which, to be fair, is most certainly the correct state to be in once a Red-backed Shrike has glided down and taken a grasshopper (R.I.P) from right by your feet. Wouldn't you agree?
 Crippling views is a term which is often overused, here though, it's justified. A shrike sitting on a perfect perch, in lovely light... you don't get much better than that.
 In the off chance that you haven't worked it out yet (I mean it's not as if the internet's filled with pictures of this bird), yes, I went for the Tide Mills Red-backed Shrike.
 It had been present for about two or three days before I managed to get over there, and I had heard it said that it was showing rather nicely.... well they got that right.

I arrived at about 1pm and spent a good five hours there, leaving at around dusk. The days really could do with being a bit longer again. The shrike, a first summer male, was on show almost the whole time, and was having his picture taken at a rate of about 40 times a second. Well, what do you expect, it was basically a photographer's dream, if photographers were ever daring enough to have a dream that crazy.
 At a twitch it is usually considered bad etiquette to approach the bird even a little bit, this wasn't one of those times however (although I'm not saying no one complained), as the shrike would let you approach to within ten feet of it and hardly give you a second glance.

Despite the presence of a large number of photographers, the bird managed to feed well throughout the day, catching grasshoppers, cranefly, bees, Devils Coach Horse beetles, lizards and apparently a Pygmy Shrew.  I was, I must admit, rather fascinated to see a lizard, dripping gook and impaled in a rose bush. Shrikes really are very lovely birds.
 As the evening drew in, it stopped feeding so much and started to sit one legged at the top of bushes issuing forth a soft, scratchy sub-song. Not very common behaviour for a shrike in Britain, but then I'm not sure much that this bird did was.
 Such a crazy good bird, quite possibly the best £2.95 I've ever spent; even if it did take me 2 hours to complete a 30 minute journey to get home... Ahh, good ol' public transport. But even the soul crushing abilities of buses and trains were well worth it.

Rich(ard's) Pickings

My, it's been a while since my last post! Have you missed me? No? Can't say I'm all that surprised...
Since my last post here in the blogger-sphere I can't say all that much had happened, well, despite a bucketload of dipping. And a big bucket at that.  You see, my annual late winter trip to Ireland wasn't quite the success I had hoped.  It resulted in the dipping of the following; Black Scoter, American Coot, Ring-necked Duck and Laughing Gull... Though some small consolation did come from a stunning drake American Wigeon.
 Yesterday morning I headed out for my first proper days birding since returning to England.  I met up with Liam Curson at Newhaven, before heading to the Ouse Estuary to look for the Richard's Pipit he had found a few days earlier.  After fifteen or so minutes scanning the grassy banks in the rain, we were heading to try a slightly different location when another birder found it up on a fencepost.  It gave great scope views here for a couple of minutes before dropping down into the grass. A great bird to start the day with!  We got some more views after it came down into the grass on a distant bank a little later on, and also had four Bearded Tits (Reedlings, whatever) in the reeds around it.

 Walking from here to Tide Mills produced a frankly ridiculous number of Snipe, probably somewhere around sixty. Oh and brief flight views of a jack Snipe as well!
 Tide Mills was pretty quiet, none of the hoped for Wheatears, but a Firecrest was a nice surprise.
 It was then on to Cuckmere, where Liam quickly found an adult Yellow-legged Gull.  A Scandi Rock Pipit, Yellowhammer and Pintail were a couple of other good birds as we headed down the river to look for the Great-grey Shrike which's been in the area for a while. And although it was still in the area having been seen earlier, we couldn't locate it.
 A possible Iberian Chiffchaff had been reported just a hundred or so metres away, so we headed up to see what was going on.  There were a few others there who'd had the bird earlier, and had taken some recordings of its song.  We then got to hear it in person as it appeared in a tree and begun singing.  How does one describe this bird? Hmm, I think weird is the best word. Yes, the bird was weird - No offence.  Most of the time it gave a song, slightly reminiscent of a Coal Tit with some little warbles, but yet it also did the standard 'Chiff-chaff', and seemingly the 'wheet' contact call of a Common Chiffchaff.  An aberrant Colybita is the current theory, and I would agree, though I'd be a long, long way out of my depth making an opinion on it.
An interesting end to a superb days birding, with a total seen and heard list of seventy species!

Let it Snow..

After my borderline disastrous pre-birthday birding, I subsequently turned fifteen.  To break in my new age, early the morning after my birthday I headed to Newhaven Harbour with Caleb for a spot of birding.  It wasn't an encouraging start after I missed the train I was intending to get.  Still, it was dark... So early enough.  With the sun coming up over the sea to start a clear day, I headed to the pier to look for Purple Sandpipers. They seem pretty much guaranteed here from December-March, so finding them usually isn't too hard, getting a shot on the other hand... not so easy.  They seem to favour feeding in the shade below the pier, bad angle, bad lighting, I'll leave it at that.  Always a joy to watch though!
 There was a single Shag fishing just off the pier, and that was about it for the next hour or two, save countless flocks of finches.
 While watching one of the groups of finches (in this case Greenfinch) feeding on a beach, we caught a glimpse of something larger with big wing-bars come down on the beach. Snow Bunting flashed to mind.  And after cautiously - and slightly excitedly I will admit - approaching where it had landed, yes!  There it was, Snow Bunting. A burst of shots, then we moved around and waited for it to come a bit closer.  Thankfully, it complied.  Need I tell you how the next four hours were spent?  Perhaps not, but I will. I feel I must, for it was rather incredible. Somehow this was my first Snow Bunt, funnily enough I dipped one here a couple of weeks ago.
I dread to think the amount of times I filled my memory cards - perhaps a reminder to clear them before I go out?  Employing the crawling-on-shingle approach, we managed at times to be within 10 foot of him (it was a male). The light was perhaps too harsh, and sure he seemed to have a love for distracting debris, but with views like that I'm not complaining...

We watched him (with just a small break) until the sun was too low to photograph any more.  Such a great bird, the third to turn up on this stretch of coast in the last few weeks, but by far the the showiest!