Daurian Shrike – Durlston Country Park, Swanage, Dorset, 13^th October 1988

Having, presumably, found out about it courtesy of Birdline, I arrived at my old haunt of Durlston Country Park outside Swanage (I’d lived in Swanage from September 1987 until Easter 1988 whilst working on a flowlines project at BP Wytch Farm) on the morning of Thursday the 13th October 1988 intent on seeing the Isabelline (nee Daurian) Shrike asap. It was a tick, after all and / or I was at work on the Purbeck to Southampton Pipeline, after all....... .

However, I was faced by apathy by the Red-backed Shrike spotters there (both Isabelline and Red-backed Shrike were present at the same time) so I located this star bird myself; basically, I found a quite large-looking, slim in shape, pale shrike adjacent to where the Red-backed Shrike was.

From the initial range involved, a dark area behind the eye and faint barring on the breast where the only visible plumage details I noted. However, on getting closer views, much closer views, I could pick out this bird on jizz alone – compared to the Red-backed Shrike it appeared subtly bigger-headed and longer-tailed.

Eventually I got the ‘Whitethroat brown’ tail. This colour merged onto the flanks. The primaries, secondaries and tertials had pale fringes but were otherwise darker than the overall sandy grey-brown upper-parts.

This was back in the days when life was simple and there was ‘just’ Isabelline Shrike in the same way there was, for example ‘just’ Velvet Scoter.

However, at the beginning of 2018 Isabelline Shrike was officially split into three separate species, the two pertinent ones in a British context being Turkestan Shrike (Lanius phoenicuroides) and Daurian Shrike (L. isabellinus ), as had been determined and announced by the British Ornithologist’s Union Records Committee.

So, nearly 30 years after I had seen the bird, I was successful in my attempt to determine whether the Isabelline Shrike seen at Durlston Country Park, Swanage, Dorset on the 13th October 1988 was ever assigned to any 'race'. I established that it was apparently an isabellinus – a Daurian Shrike. 

At the time, I still needed Turkestan Shrike, indeed, subsequent to the one at Durlston Country Park, ‘Isabelline’ Shrike (whether Daurian or Turkestan) had subsequently eluded me. However, I did see the Turkestan Shrike at Bempton in July 2022, thankfully.

Photographs of both the Isabelline Shrike (that became Daurian Shrike!) and the Red-backed Shrike that was also at Durlston Country Park, Swanage, Dorset at the same time, October 1988 (photographs credited to David Cotteridge).