Epic journey of striking shrike
Britain’s oldest byway – Hertfordshire’s meandering Icknield Way – has been guiding weary travellers since Neolithic times, but no wayfarer had come so far or been welcomed with so much glee.
Taking a much-needed rest after an epic odyssey from the arid fringes of the Kalahari Desert, the lesser grey shrike seemed oblivious to all the excitement its arrival was creating. As camera motor drives whirred and clicked, the shrike’s sole mission was replenishing exhausted body reserves with spectacular flycatching aerobatics.
Only when resting on a lichen-coated snag to digest some luckless insect was the shrike’s subtle beauty there to behold in the softening afternoon light.
A colour scheme of dove greys and warm salmon pinks cast against coal black face and wings would not have been out of place in some trendy interior design boutique.
The Icknield Way is a mere 20 minutes’ walk from my home, so I happily joined the merry throng of twitchers paying homage to the shrike by following in the footsteps of ancient goatherds, Roman legions and medieval pilgrims along the 5,000 year old path.
While the shrike posed and preened for the assembled cameras, talk among us turned to its incredible journey after going wayward enroute to Balkan nesting grounds.
Lesser grey shrikes make one of the longest migrations of any songbird, looping northwards from wintering quarters in southern Africa, skirting the eastern Sahara and then arcing across the Middle East into southern Europe.
Another contingent deflects westwards into Asia as far as China.
On average, two or three lesser grey shrikes drift to our shores each summer. Fortunately, today they are greeted with admiration and photoshoots.
But their predecessors received pitiless greetings.
Archives reveal Britain’s first lesser grey shrike in 1842 fell victim to a specimen hunter’s gun in Hampshire as did many of the subsequent birds that arrived during Victorian and Edwardian times when taxidermy reigned supreme.
In those times, blasting rare birds was a way of confirming records and gave rise to the adage: “What’s shot is history, what’s missed remains mystery…”