I was at work when at 12.18pm news broke of a juvenile / first winter red-backed shrike at Duston near Northampton. The reports suggested that the bird was often showing well, and I was itching to go and have a look - work is still busy and so I couldn't get away as early as I'd have liked but in the end, I did leave earlier than usual.
I took a cross country route and didn't get held up; parking as instructed on the Northants Birds WhatsApp group. I popped on some walking boots as I didn't know what conditions would be like and made for the footpath that ran around the horse field. As I made the entrance to the footpath Adrian Borley came the other way and relayed that the bird had dropped from view and disappeared for at least 10 minutes before he left - gone to roost or departed ...
I reached an open area and onto a raised grass bank, below which there was a narrow line of low trees and bushes, alongside an overgrown, reed-filled pond. This is where the bird had been showing and I found a single birder on guard - it turned out to be the finder, Nigel Muddiman. As I approached the bird came back into view - at least to Nigel, as it took me a little while to work out where he was looking. I got my eye in and followed the bird as it hopped around what appeared to be its favourite perch. As we watched the bird soon appeared to be eating something and we could see it was holding a black leg of a bird - the reed buntings and chiffchaffs were very disturbed but the shrike’s presence.
The light had been lost and other than chatting to another few watchers as they arrived there was no chance to get a killer photo. I left and wasn’t home until it was dark, again. Late for dinner and making my apologies ...
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