Local shrike action

I've been away for a week or so, once more guiding for the Company of Whales on the Pride of Bilbao (Portsmouth to Bilbao ferry). We saw plenty of whlaes and dolphins and superb numbers of landbirds on deck. For more on this see: www.companyofwhales.co.uk

I will be posting more from the trip later...

However, the night before I left, I got a call from Kevin Du Rose that he had found yet another good bird locally – the first Red-backed Shrike any local birders can remember (apart from a cruelly suppressed one during the FMD year of 2001).

So, before the sun rose I was at Prior's Fen, Cambs, refinding the juvenile shrike in the same bush. Soon, I was joined in a huge twitch of four other birders (Dan Williams, Katie the Bog, Brian the Natural and Steve Gann). Three of us got down to some competitive digiscoping, and this is the best I can muster. You can guess where alternative, but similar photos are on display...

Below: Juvenile Red-backed Shrike, Prior's Fen, Cambs, 4.9.04