A Great Great Grey Shrike
A Great Great Grey Shrike Encounter!
We headed into the hills today and the vast Clocaenog Forest. It was sunny but very cold and birds were few and far between, but the views were lovely.
Blue sky and sunshine
Large flocks of Fieldfares "chacked" as they flew over and the odd Buzzard soared across the blue, followed by six Ravens but that was pretty much it.
Then this rather striking Stonechat popped up on a fence. The bird showed a very strong supercilium and a very broad white collar!
The Stonechat also showed a lot of white in the tail.
Sadly the bird quickly moved out of sight before more detail could be seen, like the rump and underwing pattern. Probably just an unusually marked Stonechat but we would have liked better views.
We kept scanning the pines, in particular any dead snags and then at last, we had our reward, Great Grey Shrike!
At first a silhouette...
We moved to improve the light.
The wind was causing the shrike a few balance issues!
With careful stalking we were able to creep closer
A wonderful encounter with this amazing bird!
We will be running trips throughout the winter to see Great Grey Shrikes in the uplands of North Wales. Drop us a line for details of these and all our other trips on
info@thebiggesttwitch.com
We look forward to enjoying great birds with you.