8:30am. Weather: cold, grey autumn day, slight breeze.
I decided to attend my first twitch after reading reports of a nearby brown shrike. Although they are one of my favourite avian families I have only seen one species, a great grey at Lakenheath. Reports throughout the week indicated that it would be around over the weekend so I got up early to beat the traffic & joined already sizeable crowds twitching the individual which showed well throughout the morning, when visible, from the south bank of the river that runs through the moor.
King George VI Reservoir:
Cormorant, Kestrel, Wigeon.
Grey Wagtail - over, towards the reservoir, but not a conclusive sighting.
Moor:
Brown Shrike - was easy to find as a throng of friendly birders & twitchers were happy to point it out, so within 5 minutes of my arrival I had excellent views of it as it obligingly perched on one of its favoured bushes where it stayed for 5-10 minutes. It then disappeared for about half an hour before re-appearing further along on another bush, again showing well. A fascinating & beautiful little vagrant, which ended up being the UK's longest staying invidual of this species.
Reed Bunting, Red-Necked Parakeet, Crow, Chaffinch, Black-Headed Gull, Magpie.
Green Woodpecker - undulated through the mid-distance.
Walk back:
Robin, Great Tit, Long-Tailed Tit.
Wren - buzzing from the still thick undergrowth.
16 species, 1 new.
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