Some of the secondaries appear brownish (appears as a pale line below the terials in the photo below) and there was a contrast between these feathers an the jet black of the rest of the upperparts, so I think this is a 1st summer male, rather than an adult as has been reported elsewhere. Although I'd welcome other opinions.
For the past three months I have been working with Paul Chester on some surveys at various sites between Whitby and Teesside. Early on in the project Paul said he'd allocate me the more interesting sites for birds whilst he took on the 'duller sites' as he worked on other aspects of the ecology. So, after a morning spent working on a different project I was surprised to get a call from Paul about a shrike he had found, but wasn't sure of its identification. From his description it was clearly a Woodchat Shrike. So, I headed up to the field and dung heaps west of Sneatonthorpe and soon after 11am was enjoying some cracking views of a nice male Woodchat Shrike and confirmed the identification. So much for his sites being the dull ones!!
Some of the secondaries appear brownish (appears as a pale line below the terials in the photo below) and there was a contrast between these feathers an the jet black of the rest of the upperparts, so I think this is a 1st summer male, rather than an adult as has been reported elsewhere. Although I'd welcome other opinions.
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A slightly delayed start this morning meant that I was still driving out to Long Nab when I got a text from Nick about a Sooty Shearwater that had just passed the seawatching hut. An unusually early record and hopefully a sign of some good seawatching to come this autumn. I spent 2 1/2 hours seawatching and for the 1st June it was surprisingly interesting. 2 Bonxies headed north, a reasonable movement of Common Scoters was noted and 3 Red-throated Divers, a Red-breasted Merganser, 25 Manx Shearwaters and small numbers of Sandwich Terns were also on the move. Not bad at all. Before leaving I headed to the 'cover crop field' which is currently bare, but has had several Lapwing chicks. A Sparrowhawk was causing the adults to alarm and the chicks were hidden up. However, although a couple of Wheatears were something of a surprise, I was very pleased to discover a Grey-headed Wagtail on the opposite edge of the field. A nice find. Nick managed to get to see it before it headed strongly south.
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AuthorFreelance ornithologist and tour leader based in Scarborough, N Yorkshire. Archives
January 2023
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