Turkestan Shrike – near Bempton Cliffs RSPB Reserve, Bempton, East Yorkshire, 12th July 2022
I needed it, but first…… .
Taxonomic context…..
The British List, as curated by the British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee (BOURC), adopted a series of taxonomic decisions made by the International Ornithological Committee (IOC) from the start of 2018. One of these was that Isabelline Shrike was (in the context of British records anyway) split into Daurian Shrike (Lanius isabellinus) and Turkestan Shrike (Lanius phoenicuroides) (called Isabelline Shrike and Red-tailed Shrike respectively by IOC).
Although ‘Isabelline Shrikes’ are almost annual, with over 100 having been recorded in Britain by the time this split officially happened, I had only seen one, way back in October 1988 in Durlston Country Park outside Swanage in Dorset. This was partly as I only need to see one for my list, although I subsequently regretted not to bothering to see the November 1993 one at Fife Ness in Fife for my Scottish list.
Further, since the first record of an Isabelline Shrike (on the Isle of May in 1950!), there had been 108 records of Isabelline Shrike spp. until the end of 2020. These had not been assigned to either isabellinus or phoenicuroides as they haven’t yet been re-submitted and / or reviewed and accepted as one or the other (or as insufficient detail was recorded to assign the bird involved one way or the other); presumably the BBRC may eventually consider further assessment of previous records to see how many can be assigned one way or another? Meanwhile, up until the end of 2020, there had been ten accepted records of Daurian Shrike and seven records of Turkestan Shrike.
Put another way, between when the split came into force on the 1st January 2018 and the end of 2020, there were six accepted records of Isabelline Shrike spp., just one accepted record of Turkestan Shrike (involving a bird on North Ronaldsay for two days in August 2020) and no accepted records of Daurian Shrike.
So, although, to date, Daurian Shrike has been regarded as the more regularly occurring of the two species, as most birds have not yet been officially accepted to the level of the new species this may not be an accurate reflection of the actual situation.
Sometime after the split came into force, I casually conducted an online search to see whether I could ascertain whether or not the Durlston Country Park had been identified to sub-species level. According to my sources (presumably the Dorset Bird Club, but sadly this wasn’t recorded) the bird had been considered to be a Lanius (isabellinus) isabellinus.
So, I was happy enough that ‘my’ bird had been considered to be Daurian, but I then omitted to check whether it had indeed been accepted by BBRC as such!! It hadn’t, as it happens, so technically, therefore, I still need a ‘good’ Daurian Shrike, but that’s another story....... .
…… and, now, the horrific ‘tales of woe’ context….. .
By the time spring 2022 commenced, my last tick, the Long-toed Stint at Swillington Ings, West Yorkshire, in October 2021, seemed like a very long time ago.
However, months earlier I had lined up two visits involving a week or more – to the Isle of May between the 14th and the 21st May 2022 and to Shetland between the 1st and 8th June 2022, respectively, and, additionally, much nearer the time, I had wrangled an additional week on the Isle of May between the 27th April and the 4th May 2022. I fantasised with Steely the ultimate ideal of finding a tick for myself on the Isle of May – one of the three Subalpine Warbler species would do; after all, the timing was bang on, so why not? And failing that, surely the first week of June in Shetland would deliver something?
As it happened, there was a dearth of common migrants, let alone scarce or rare ones, on both visits to the Isle of May. On the last day of my Low Light visit (I had stayed in Fluke Street during my first visit) we thought we had managed to save the trip. That said, this had already involved Honey Buzzard and Bluethroat for some of us, and then a stonking Rustic Bunting that Ken located and suspected and I relocated and confirmed (before disgracefully then managing to lose it for the assembled crowd, only to be saved when Chris Broome extracted it from his nearby net and produced it before my very eyes….). This ultimately proved to be the bird of the spring for me, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
On our last day, Andy Williams had a Ring-necked Parakeet come in off the sea from the direction of Fife before landing on the crest of the brae opposite the Low Light terrace. Here it showed for everyone before flying south before the returning Steely reached the island…. . I even contemplated the ‘fact’ that we had a winner in the predict the next (i.e., the 100th) new species for the Bird Observatory, as someone had predicted ‘Green Parrot’. However, no sooner had we left the island than the bird was rediscovered and promptly proceeded to disgrace itself by, firstly, accepting food from the hands of those staying in Fluke Street before, secondly, willingly moving in to the residential quarters there. As such, soon afterwards ‘Leo’ the parakeet was unceremoniously repatriated back to its owner, who travelled from Glenrothes to collect ‘him’ (actually ‘her’) from the crew of the May Princess in Anstruther.
Anyway, where was I? Months earlier, Gary, Chris, Steve and I had all agreed we fancied taking in the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final at the New White Hart Lane in London on Saturday the 28th May 2022, and so Steve had duly arranged tickets. As the base for the weekend was necessarily going to be Gary’s flat in St. Albans, and as I no longer had ‘staging posts’ en route like my Dads in Chesterfield on my car journeys, I opted to book return train tickets from Dalmeny to St. Albans via Edinburgh Waverley via King’s Cross and St. Pancras. Besides, fuel was increasingly expensive, taking the train was more environmentally sound, and I had a senior railcard. It was a no-brainer.
I travelled south on Friday the 27th May. The previous day an Eleonora’s Falcon had been reported on RBA, having been identified from photographs flying over the scrapes at Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory, before briefly being seen at Stodmarsh. So, the following day, as I sent off on my train journey south, the significance of further sightings at Worth Marsh barely registered; it was a highly aerial / very mobile Eleonora’s Falcon after all, it was never going to linger….. .
I was intent on travelling light, and never gave any thought to taking my binoculars. However, by the time I reached King’s Cross and St. Pancras (as close as I was to get!!!) that evening, there had been 30 Rare Bird Alert messages about it ‘still showing at Worth Marshes’. Ho-hum.
These continued as I travelled to St. Albans, rendezvoused with Gary, and we rendezvoused with Chris and Steve, etc..
I was very slow to realise the significance of this; it was, as I say, a highly aerial / very mobile falcon, and just wouldn’t linger. Would it?
But it did, big-time. It was there the following day, when again I got as close to it as King’s Cross and St. Pancras en route to the New White Hart Lane in Tottenham. By the time we had returned to St. Albans and retreated to the Goat Inn for the evening to watch the chaotic Champion’s League Final I had cracked, and very provisionally I had agreed with Gary that if it was still there then following day, I could borrow his car and drive it on a third party insurance basis to Worth Marshes and back, taking with me the binoculars Evan and Kirsty had bought him for his birthday so he could take them to Chile, the Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica when we went on our expedition there….. .
I tried not to drink too much that night and was in a reasonable state the following morning. Helpfully, there was very early positive news at 05:11 on the Sunday morning, but as Gary hadn’t abstained the previous night, I was loathed to either wake him, or to just take his car. Then, the next message, at 07:04, suggested there was no further sign, and I convinced myself it had moved on; after all, it and several Hobbies and a Red-footed Falcon MUST be rapidly depleting the available aerial insect prey?
So, I abandoned the provisional scheme I’d agreed with Gary, and this remained the case when there was again positive news at 08:44, 09:38, etc.. There would still have been time, as my return train didn’t depart from St. Albans until the late afternoon, but, frankly, I had bottled it; it just felt all a bit too contrived, driving there and back in Gary’s car without proper insurance cover, with just some rather average binoculars….. .
How I regretted this when I saw some of the photographs taken that day, and on other days. I journeyed back home, and it remained faithful to Worth Marshes until Saturday the 4th June, well into my visit to Shetland…… .
AAAARGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!! One of my truly most disastrous ‘misses’; right up there with Long-billed Murrelet.
Anyway, having arrived back home very late on Sunday the 29th May, on Tuesday the 31st May I drove to Aberdeen and collected eldest daughter Ellen and her long-term boyfriend Shane before we boarded the overnight Northlink ferry to Lerwick via Kirkwall.
Ellen and Shane had for a good few-years both lived in Aberdeen when they were students and now lived there together as they had both started full-time employment. Given that Aberdeen was often my point of departure if and when I went to Shetland, I had asked Ellen whether she might like to go to Shetland sometime. To my delight she had suggested she would, so I had picked up the idea and ran with it, eventually booking my car and berths for us on the ferry, and an AirBnB place in central Lerwick between the 1st and 8th June. What was not to like, Shetland in early June with eldest daughter and her boyfriend…. ?
That was the principle, and a fine one it was, too.
However, in practice, it wasn’t quite as simple as that. I was very much forgetting that Ellen and Shane were a young couple, who were both until recently full-time students, and were now both in their first full-time employment. So, despite the vague idea that I was going to show them Shetland, and that, as and when birds turned up on off-islands, we would go for them so I could show them the islands as well as mainland, it didn’t quite work out like that.
Ellen and Shane were committed to enjoying a very relaxing holiday, their first together since Shane had started his job. As such, early on in the week, I often waited around in the morning until they finally got up at 10:30 or 11:00; after all, I was meant to be showing them around!
And then once they were up, it was sometimes tortuous deciding what we were going to do.
Anyway, one thing we were agreed on was going to Mousa one late evening to see the broch and its Storm Petrels. Ellen, bless her, was proactive in booking this for £30 each online on her mobile; in doing so she had managed to get us places on what was an additional sailing.
This was booked for the late evening of Sunday the 5th June, and undoubtedly it was one of the very best things we did.
It involved getting to the quay in Sandwick by 22.30 so we could be on the island ‘after dark’, or, at least, after what passed as dark in the midsummer dim.
We had a leisurely day visiting St. Ninian’s Island, and various places in South Mainland, before returning to our place in Lerwick to have a meal and prepare for our evening adventure. Or at least it was leisurely until when news broke of a Moltoni’s Warbler at Valyrie on Unst just after 18:00. Now, I could have got there (and back) that night, but that would have meant ditching our booked trip to Mousa, which had cost £90 and was something we had all committed too. Things had been quite fraught at times so I just couldn’t, and indeed wouldn’t, go there. And anyway, it would still be there the following day, and we could all have a day on Unst. Surely? Was it thump!
AAAARGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!! Another disastrous miss.
This was compounded by the news that earlier in the day a White-throated Needletail had been picked up and released on the Ortelius expedition ship close to Fair Isle, Shetland at 05.37 that morning, which SO easily (if it had done the decent thing) could have ended up at Sumburgh Head and / or Noss Head (as a Pacific Swift did a few weeks later).
So, Shetland was a tale of what might have been yet again, with the best birds ‘seen’ being a Icterine Warbler and a Quail (which were both actually heard only!). Just to rub it in, within days there was a bull Orca cruising around of the tombolo at St. Ninian’s Island, oh, and a summer-plumaged Broad-billed Sandpiper at various places in South Mainland; just a Scottish tick, but, in the circumstances, it would have done.
Anyway, consolation was perhaps to hand, as the returning Short-toed Eagle had been seen in deepest Sutherland on a more or less daily basis every day ever since it was first seen on the 24th May. Necessarily, I hadn’t been able to go for this between the Isle of May and the Shetland trips, but I could go direct from the Shetland trip IF it continued to behave? Maybe that could be my compensation after the disastrous misses of Eleonora’s Falcon and Moltoni’s Warbler?
Throughout my stay in Shetland, it was seen day after day, and as such, I gathered what information I could to facilitate my twitch. In particular, I contacted Donald Wilson on the 3rd June as he had seen it on the 1st June, and he certainly produced the goods in terms of gen.
Ellen and Shane got the overnight ferry back to Aberdeen on the 7th June, whereas I had to wait until the 8th June as there was no room for the car on the 7th. When I had booked, I’d thought this was a bonus, an extra day in Shetland during early June, what’s not to like?
The Short-toed Eagle was seen on the 7th June, when I had a leisurely day pre-ferry, walking the Wester Quarff circuit and touring South Mainland, and generally seeing nowt.
So it was that I drove off the ferry at around 07:30 on the morning of Wednesday the 8th June, and drove direct via the A96 and the A9(T), and various roads to and beyond Lairg all the way to Dalreavoch. Even though part of my premise was that there was no point driving from Aberdeen home to Queensferry and then from there back up to the wilds of Sutherland, it was a long drive!
However, once there, after some indecision about the right place at which to commence my walk (despite Donald’s excellent instructions), I teamed up with a youngish birder who had also travelled from Aberdeenshire who arrived just after I did. He and I then walked up the track behind the Dalreavoch Lodge to beyond the plantation alongside it and then up onto the low hill which comprised the viewpoint from which people had been seeing the eagle. We didn’t necessarily make to climb up together; I found it a real struggle carrying all my gear and generally wobbling about due to my balance issue.
Anyway, we watched from the viewpoint and had an Osprey (which caused him a minor panic), before another birder, Colin Auld, arrived, and my original companion departed. Colin and I, in particular, put in a real shift, but to no avail. It was a great site; I could see why a Short-toed Eagle could get by there but….. . By c.18:30 I’d had enough and tramped back down to the car to continue the long drive home. I consoled myself by ‘phoning Andy Williams to tell him of my woes, and he suggested he would speak to fellow Highland birders to get as much gen as possible before making his own attempts to re-locate the bird so that I could then travel to Ullapool (possibly with Ken) to attempt to see it from a nearby base but…… . To add further ignominy, as I tonked the car home on the M90, a speed camera flashed me near the Amazon Depot on the outskirts of Dunfermline (although thankfully, no fixed penalty notice subsequently arrived, certainly not to date…).
Again, AAAARGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!! Another disastrous miss.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
So, it was in the context of this disastrous spring that the Turkestan Shrike turned up and both taunted and tempted me. As such, it took me almost three weeks before I finally twitched it!
As it happened, I’d had some dialogue with Viv Hastie as we’d been actioned at the Isle of May Bird Observatory and Field Station Trust ‘gathering’ in Anstruther on the 18th June to commence the roll out of the membermojo online membership platform for members of the Trust. I’d asked Viv about her availability to get together to do this, having had a reminder from membermojo that the trial I had commenced would lapse on the 24th July, and, amongst other things, she had told me she would be going to Bempton on the 27th June to cover for someone else whilst they were on leave as part of her new role tagging Kittiwakes in relation to offshore wind-farm development.
As such, when the shrike was relocated on the 28th June, I immediately let Viv know, and she duly sent me a half-decent digiscoped image of the bird later on… .
For me though, it wasn’t so easy. The events of the past few weeks, in terms of me missing absolutely stonking ‘available’ birds, had completely done for me; I had no enthusiasm for a twitch. This was also partly because it was a long drive from Queensferry to Bempton, and nowadays it wasn’t something I could readily tack onto a visit to my Dads, for instance, as had undoubtedly been the case in other such instances when I had twitched Yorkshire.
To compound things further, irony of ironies, in an instance of déjà vu, Gary, Chris, Steve and I had agreed we fancied taking in the Rugby League Magic Weekend at St. James’s Park in Newcastle on Saturday the 9th July 2022, and so Steve had duly arranged tickets. We were making a full weekend of it, and going out on the ‘toon’ that night, and so, as I had done when I attended Gary’s brother’s Stag weekend in Newcastle earlier in the year, I had arranged return train tickets from Dalmeny to Newcastle. So, although I was half-way to Bempton that weekend, and if I had driven to Newcastle, I could have simply continued beyond to Bempton on the Sunday after our get together ended (or indeed gone on the Friday before and then stayed over in Newcastle), this wasn’t to be…. .
So, I just serially swithered about going, putting it off one way and another, almost willingly it to move on and make my mind up for me. For example, when Viv suggested that she could be available to do the work we had been assigned to do on Monday the 11th July, the day after my lad’s weekend in Newcastle, I’d responded saying that this date sounded good, if I didn’t twitch the shrike.
However, in the end, I decided that we should go ahead with the proposed get together (as Viv was available), and instead I’d go the following day. Clearly, rolling out the membermojo online membership platform was more important than some shrike….. .
Despite the declared intention of going on Tuesday the 12th July, when there was eventually negative news at 08:20, I assumed it had perhaps done the decent thing and buggered off, so I breathed a sigh of relief, and resumed work on a briefing note about the work Viv and I had conducted, only for positive news to eventually come through at 09.26….. .
For the rest of the week, I concentrated on getting good drafts of most of the next Isle of May Bird Observatory newsletter in place. This went well, such that, by the end of the (working?) week I had run out of excuses, and decided that, if it was still there the following day, I would go, come what may.
By now I figured it was too good an opportunity to miss as it was an adult male, and had lingered for days and days. Part of me knew that if I didn’t see it, there wouldn’t be another one available for me, whereas if I did see it, I would undoubtedly bump into one in Shetland the following autumn……. .
So, on Saturday the 16th July I finally made my move……. . Was it a mission involving madness, or a sojourn offering solace? Who knows, but…. .
As is traditional, when I’m getting up early necessitating an alarm to be set, I don’t necessarily sleep too well, and such was the case that morning. I set the alarm for 07:00 but there wasn’t any news for somewhile after that, so I didn’t get up immediately. There was though, positive news by 08:10 by which time I had been up for a good while, so this and the preparation I had done previously meant I was in the car and away soon after 08:30.
It was a long, long drive. I opted for A1(T) and the A19, before skirting Middlesbrough and crossing the North York Moors to Whitby and Scarborough and beyond. The first bit to Tees-side was fine but beyond that, it was tedious, especially in coastal Yorkshire, as it was the weekend, and lovely weather. Anyway, I eventually arrived at 13:45, as it suggested on Google Maps directions, just over 5 hours later.
Once parked in a rather full car-park, I quickly used the (back up) Portaloo facilities in the car-park (well, it had been a long journey!) and then assembled my gear and set off. I’d a rough idea where I was going due to my research, but enquired anyway at the help-desk outside the RSPB Visitor’s Centre. The very rudimentary directions I received involved walking to the coastline, finding the Staple Neuk viewpoint (where the albatross was regularly being seen from) and ask there. I, partly by intuition, made my way to the Staple Neuk viewpoint, and by the time I had reached there, had a good idea where I was going, but I asked someone amongst many people coming along the coastal path towards me if he knew where the shrike was. He confirmed that from the next viewing point at which people were congregated, there was a footpath back inland alongside a field boundary hedge, and there were birders looking at (or for) the bird from a field along that path.
Somehow it had seemed to take a long time to walk there, which I did at some pace, but seemingly it was only a walk of 20 minutes or so. When I arrived, the scene involved a few ‘birders’ standing in a recently mown grass field about 30 or 40 m away from a youngish looking hedge (on the same field boundary along which was the footpath). I joined them, and set up my ‘scope; it seemed that the shrike frequently the hedge and appeared occasionally in two partial gaps, and very occasionally, actually on our side but, given the very strong ‘Sirocco’ type breeze at our backs, was mainly on the opposite side of the hedge (where all the large insects would be).
Suffice to say, that, given this was the third weekend and twentieth day the bird had been there, the assembled audience (which constantly changed but which amounted to eight or so people at any one time) wasn’t exactly cutting edge. It included ‘no binoculars toggers’ (“Where is it, have you got it?”) and professional Yorkshiremen with NO volume control who insisted in talking very loudly, whilst saying nothing of any value (“CAN YOU HEAR ME? I’M FROM CHUFFING YORKSHIRE ME”). Whilst these distractions annoyed me, it has to be said that the sole reason the bird was generally out of sight on the other side of the hedge was because of the wind.
After what seemed like a long wait (but again actually wasn’t) one of the more together of the ensemble quietly gestured that it was visible on the edge of one of the gaps. I moved across towards a point alongside him from which I could see it with the naked eye and quickly managed to get it is the ‘scope.
Although it wasn’t on view for very long, I could see enough of it to know it was an isabelline type shrike, (although admittedly, not necessarily a Turkestan Shrike!); I even began to sketch it, poorly.
Anyway, soon enough it was back out of sight, and although I saw it again briefly with the naked eye flying out from the hedge into the field edge after some prey item, that was it. I could have stayed much longer, and maybe I would have had further brief ‘scope views when it was in the gaps, but it was very apparent that the wind was generally going to keep it out of sight.
So, I left within an hour of arriving on the scene, which might make me sound like some sort of heretic, but this was an entirely pragmatic decision; it was around about 15:20, and I had a five plus hour drive back, and having seen the bird, albeit briefly, I’d done what I set out to do.
I’d got back on the bike (or in the car in this instance) and, shortcomings or not, finally had a successful twitch after the horrors of the past few weeks. I’d proved once again, (admittedly to myself) that major birds being available and me successfully twitching them weren’t two diametrically incompatible concepts; I COULD safely twitch again.
I hadn’t walked far when a RBA message came through on my mobile saying that the Black-browed Albatross was showing at Staple Neuk. This gave me further conviction my decision to leave very promptly was the right one, although when I arrived at Staple Neuk the albatross wasn’t apparent, and it seemed if it had been there, it had only been there briefly. Either that, or it was out of sight and / or the punters there were oblivious.
All the same, I enjoyed the spectacle from the viewpoint briefly; certainly, Bempton Cliffs is a very impressive place.
I then continued on to the café at the visitor centre where, after some confusion as I entered the café queue from the field rather than direct from the car-park, I quickly purchased and consumed a chicken salad sandwich, some fruit cake and a can of dandelion and burdock.
I then departed, and commenced the long (and winding!) drive back. I opted to take a different route from Filey to Malton and thence to the A1(M) and A66 (then the M6, M74, A702, etc.). This I did, although beyond Malton I ended up going to York and then Thirsk rather than straight across to the A1(M). However, again, it was approximately a five-hour journey, lasting from about 16:30 until 21:30.
All in all, I drove about 437 miles in more than 10 hours, all, as suggested, to see a bird for just a very few brief minutes. BUT, like I say, the main thing was simply that I saw it, and in doing so filled a gap created by a modern taxonomic split, AND I successfully twitched a bird. A sojourn offering solace, I’d say?
Potentially, ‘my’ bird it wasn’t even the first Turkestan Shrike for the parish of Bempton, but that has yet to be confirmed. And, another factiod I like is that seemingly this bird was the same one that had previously been seen in the Low Countries.
So, what was the bird like? It was the typical size and shape of a Red-backed or Woodchat Shrike, and was clearly an adult (and apparently an adult male). Overall, it was pale-brown, lighter below and darker above, with an impressive black mask with a wavy outline, and a rufous rump and tail (seen briefly in the ‘scope when it moved from perch to perch). It had somewhat darker remiges and a white patch at the base of the primaries (seen with the naked eye when it chased prey low at the base of the hedge / on the field edge). There was a hint of rufous on the crown. However, the clear white stripe above
the black mask and below the crown was not seen. The bill and legs were black. All in all, a stunning bird, and yes, it’s a shame I didn’t get better views of it. Maybe one in Shetland?
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