I’ve never been someone who chases round the country to photograph the rare birds that turn up on our shores from our European neighbours. Personally I enjoy photographing our more commoner subjects,trying to capture them in different or interesting situations. However when a rare visitor turned up almost on my doorstep on private farmland that I have access to, I thought I should at least give it my attention. The Great Grey Shrike breeds across most of mainland Europe and is an occasional visitor to the UK during the winter. It hunts small mammals, birds and insects and is often found perched upon fence posts or small trees/shrubs from where it hunts from. Over the course of the five days it remain in the same location I was able to get a series of shots that show it’s classic behaviour.
Sometimes it would land on a very unnatural perch.
By spending time on this subject I was also able to photograph it as it flew and hunted from it’s various perches.
One piece of behaviour that I captured that was facinating to watch was it coughing up a pellet from its mouth.
And finally anything sihouetted against a red sky is always nice but to have such a rare bird is definately a bonus.
