Shrike Time - 25th August 2026

And still the shrike remains! 

It's been almost seven weeks!

This evening the Long tailed Shrike was particulary confiding, perching in its usual hawthorn by the bridleway and coming down to within feet of us to seize various insect prey it spotted in the withered grass.

I am convinced its behaviour had something to do with the fact there were only four or five of us present this evening and that we all stood back from its favourite hedgerow, unlike the larger numbers that were here yesterday.

Incidentally as I made my way to the shrike there was a good selection of other birds in and around the hedgerow that marks the boundary between the two counties.

I counted the following:

Whinchat 3

European Stonechat 1

Northern Wheatear 1

Common Redstart 1

Common Whitethroat 2

Corn Bunting 17

Yellowhammer 1

I stood quietly watching the shrike rather than taking yet more images which was common  sense as further efforts would only serve to duplicate those I had taken on all my previous visits..Rather  I was waiting for the shrike to descend to the ground in order to try and get some images of it there. It is not easy as you need to remain constantly alert due to having no idea when the shrike will spot a potential victim and decide to fly down and, when it does happen the bird is on the ground for seconds only before flying back to its perch.

The most interesting thing this evening was when the shrike caught what I think was a large moth, possibly a Silver Y and flew back to an elder to try and impale it on one of the dead twigs or stems sticking out like bones from the elder but failed, due to the twigs not being sharp or thin enough.It made several abortive attempts to afix the moth to one of these but finally gave up and flew to its favourite hawthorn and had no trouble securing the moth to one of the many suitable thorns in that tree.

I took a sequence of images from the moment the shrike flew towards the moth from its perch, landed on the ground to capture it and then subsequently attempted unsuccessfully to impale it on an elder stem. 

Its diet this evening mostly consisted of grasshoppers supplemented with the occasional beetle and it rarely had to move more than fifty metres in either direction from its favourite hawthorn although occasionally visiting a nearby bramble or elder bush.

Eventually the light began to fade and any thought of further photography was futile so I got chatting to two fellow birders and we became so engrossed in swapping stories of our various birding experiences that the shrike was almost forgotten, perched in another hawthorn near to four people sat on the ground who also seemed to have decided that photography was a lost cause. 

You can just make out the shrike in the hawthorn towards the top left of the image

As the evening drew in, a customary quiet crept over the land as the shrike remained perched in its tree watching for one last meal. 

A pair of Grey Partridges were a final pleasant surprise as I made my way along the bridleway to my car.