I was minding the grandchildren in Hornchurch when Ian L. found a Greater Short-toed Lark on KGV Thursday this week so watched the mornings sightings from a far and was disappointed to hear the bird had been flushed early afternoon by a photographer getting into it's comfort zone and forcing it to fly across the relief channel into Sewardstone marsh. With my family duty over I dropped Suzanne home and drove to Sewardstone Marsh where I found Nick and Marco and negative news from their search. I offered them a lift around to the reservoir with a plan to walk to the north east corner in case the Lark had returned. We did the walk finding just a Common Scoter on north basin amongst the few remaining Tufted ducks. There are still lot's of Great Crested Grebe about and mixed numbers of hirundines. Four Common Tern flew across the reservoir heading south and Nick had a Whimbrel which I missed. There was no sign of the Lark and so sadly it won't be appearing on my Essex/London lists anytime soon.
Roll on twenty four hours and a Woodchat Shrike is reported at Rainham and this time my time was my own so I called the Jims and within twenty minutes we were on our way. The Shrike was in brambles by Shooting Butts hide which meant walking to about the half way point on the reserve, about a mile or so. We arrived to find a few locals already there and good news that the bird had been showing well but was a bit flighty if you got too close so everybody was keeping a healthy distance (unlike reports from the Lark at KGV) and our reward was a couple of hours of good views as the Shrike dropped to the floor to feed and returned to the top of the brambles to rest in between. It was grey and damp so whatever it was eating was tiny although it did miss an opportunity when a vole ran out across the path below it. With the reserve closing at 5pm we set off at 4pm to ensure a safe exit from the car park.
year list now 207
The Shrike is also an addition to my London list which now stands at 239
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