Red-backed and Red-necked

We're certainly perfecting our Red-backed Shrike ID at the moment. Having seen the adult female at Biggleswade last weekend, we arrived at Holme on Saturday [4 Sept] to hear that a juvenile was present there, and soon caught up with it – frequenting a patch of scrub in the middle of the dunes area.

An exciting bonus was the Barred Warbler keeping it company (which apparently is often the case) – although this was much more elusive and several vigils throughout the day were rewarded with only a couple of brief appearances.

We ended the day in the hide at Redwell Marsh watching a Red-necked Phalarope that had flown in the previous day. This bird definitely wasn’t hard to spot – it had the pool more or less to itself. Feeding frantically, it stopped for barely a second and made you feel almost dizzy watching it. After leaving its breeding grounds in the Arctic this one had decided to break its journey in Norfolk in readiness for the final stage of its journey to the Arabian Sea. The Arctic to the Arabian Sea... no wonder it needed to eat so much.