Strike-out, shrike out

A beautiful morning! Too good to waste. Jumped in the van with a black coffee, stuck in the new Eric Clapton remastered cd, waited for the windscreen frost to melt and headed off to stocks reservoir to twitch the Great grey shrike.
Good blues, clear roads and a sunny day all had me confident of a successful day.
Shame I'm such a jinx though.
I saw a deer on the road just before the church. A doe but could have been a red deer or a sika cos it was to quick for me to tell. Then a stoat darted across.
I met Dave Bickerton at the church but even with 2 pairs of keen eyes, we couldnt find the Shrike, only a mistle thrush ,kestrel and a stonechat.

Drove on up to the hides for a look on the reservoir itself.

Grey heron, GBB gulls, cormorant, coot, mallard, teal, wigeon, pochard and this scaup in amongst the tufted ducks. 3 female goosander and some snipe were also visible in the distance.




























Heres 2 snipe sitting with some teal














2 annoying, really noisy birders joined me in the hide, flasks of tea and cakes at the ready. I took my leave to escape their endless faffing and rustling. Back out in the peace and quiet, Dave summoned me over to say that he'd found the Shrike.
We looked around in the clearing and I managed some dodgyscoped shots of reed bunting and redpoll.



























There are 4 redpoll in the above shot.

At least 2 green woodpeckers distracted me for a bit, this GS woody and a calling tawny owl made it difficult to concentrate on the shrike search.















A flock of 7 bullfinch, some siskin with the redpoll and a few chaffinch were all quite flighty. We thought they may have been mobbing the shrike.
Coal,blue, great and long-tailed tits in abundance with goldcrest,wren and robin. All could be a future meal for a hungry shrike.

Eventually we saw something drop to the floor from a low branch. Neither of us were quick enough with the bins, but from the naked eye, I'd say that it was the shrike. However after another hour, various angles on the spot, and another 10 birders joining us.....there were no more sightings!
Not a great twitch but I cant think what else we could have seen.

Saw a few mipit on champion moor on the way back but no short eared owls or hen harriers.

When I got back to Clitheroe, Ann had found this White plumed moth in the garden.
















Not a bad day at all with more than 50 species seen.
I'll get back to re-editing my starling video and post it later tonight.