A first for Britain on my patch?

‘Steppe’ Grey Shrike  Lanius excubitor homeyeri at Blacka Moor, South Yorkshire. Copyright Martin Garner 2010.

I’ve been bird surveying Blacka Moor Sheffield Wildlife Trust (SWT) Nature Reserve for the last three years. It’s an excellent site for birding comprising 180ha of mixed habitat on the western fringe of Sheffield just inside the Peak District. I’ve logged 84 species there so far, not bad for a site with no open water. One species I hadn’t seen on the reserve was Great Grey Shrike, a species that used to winter at Blacka Moor quite regularly but hasn’t since 2003. So when reports came in during late October of a bird first at the neighbouring Longshaw Estate, and then at Blacka Moor itself, I made two unsuccessful attempts to see it.

A few days later, on  Wednesday 3^rd November, I had a site meeting on the reserve with Annabelle Kennedy, SWT Reserve Manager. Meeting concluded I looked at the sky and reckoned maybe, if I was lucky,  I’d  be able to get an hours birding in before the expected band of heavy rain hit.  After a wander round Cowsick Bog and Strawberry Lee Pastures I took a loop across Blacka Hill as the last leg before heading for home. Cresting the brow I was met with a grey shrike perched on top of a small tree. It immediately struck me as being a bit odd. The upperparts looked pallid and the underparts vaguely buff coloured reducing the contrast between the two areas. I didn’t have a ‘scope with me but was able to stalk close to it taking clues of when to move closer by observing its behaviour; when it was looking intently downwards, actively hunting, then clearly it wasn’t concerned by my presence. Several other features became apparent. It had a rather large white wing patch stretching across both the primaries and secondaries. There also appeared to be a lot of white on the tips of the secondaries.  It also had a lot of white in the tail; the two outermost tail feathers appeared to be all white and white hooked round on to the bases of the other outer tail feathers. The lores were smudgy, with a pale line at the bill base visible on occasion, contrasting with a black mask behind the eye. The base of the lower mandible was pale and pinkish. On one rear view  the uppertail coverts looked distinctly whitish and at some angles at least the white on the scapulars looked rather extensive. I also noted a white bar on the tips of the greater coverts and white tips to the tertials indicating it was a first winter bird and the apparent buffish colouration on the underparts  was produced by  barring. 

As I watched I ran through the options. Not Saxual Grey Shrike L.(e/meridionalis).pallidostris (white on secondaries, no pale edges to greater  and median coverts, lores and bill too dark for a first winter and the underparts were also barred,  primary projection too short, ). Not the Siberian form L.e.sibiricus (I’d seen a picture of a bird in Finland and that had a lot of brown colouration). What about that one from South-East Russia in the new Collins Field Guide? In my mind I could see the illustration in the book, its position on the plate, and vaguely the shape and the letters of the scientific name (but couldn’t summon up a pronunciation!) After half an hour I thought I’d seen all I could with binoculars, had been lucky not to have had a soaking, and was keen to get home and do some research. I left the bird and set off for the walk back. It was quite an odd feeling. I was sure that  form wasn’t on the British List and the thought ‘you might just have been looking at a first for Britain’ made itself known. But it was a calm thought, no rush of exhilaration. Was it one? Or was I looking at something within the variation of young nominate excubitor? I’d only seen two of those recently, one in February 2005 but that was distant,  and I’d also seen one at Spurn in September 2008. The latter one was also brief and was bounding around the sky with a vole in its bill which rather took my attention  and not the finer details of plumage!

So back at home the first port of call was Collin’s. My reaction was mixed. On one hand the tail pattern looked good for the S.E. Russian sub-species homeyeri. The wing pattern also looked good (but was it quite that broad?). On the other hand the illustration of the juvenile excubitor could explain away a number of features if the Blacka Moor bird was a late moulter (pale lores, slightly paler upperparts, some contrast between the upper-parts and the rump and also the pale bill base). A further check on enthusiasm was the caption ‘intergrades with excubitor  not uncommon’. Next stop was to go negative and try and find pictures of an excubitor  on the internet that matched this bird. Well I certainly found birds with more extensive white in the wing and the tail then shown in Collin’s . I also noted that  all the North-West European records (Finland and Sweden) had been of birds trapped for ringing raising the question was a young homeyeri  actually identifiable with certainty in the field? I read the Finnish Records Committee’s acceptance criteria in a rather broken translation. They listed lots of measurements of the precise extent of white in the wings and tail and an insistence that the outer two tail feathers should be completely (or almost so) white.  And the question remained ‘what does a young homeyeri  actually look like?’ The illustration in Collin’s was of an adult male and I had yet to track down an illustration or picture of a non adult bird.

So what to do next?  Did I have anything that was solidly out of the variation of a young excubitor? Was I certain about the plumage tones? How had the changing light conditions (as the weather front approached) affected my perception? Was the whitish looking upper-tail coverts a function of looking over the white tail-base? Were the outer tail feathers really completely white, could I have missed a smudge towards the base of the inner web of the second outermost feather? I concluded that I really didn’t have enough for a shout and would have to see the bird again to check some details. However that wing pattern could not be explained away entirely and I felt I could at least mention that feature with confidence. I couldn’t get up to Blacka Moor the next day so a posted a note on the Sheffield Bird Study Group website (SBSG.org) mentioning the wing pattern but also that the rest of plumage ‘appeared normal’.  I thought this combination gave enough to perhaps arouse the curiosity of the more esoterically inclined but would allow an unbiased appraisal of the subtler features that i was uncertain of. On Thursday I checked the internet to see if anyone had had a look. Nothing up. I didn’t check my emails however which was unfortunate, Martin Garner (not an entire surprise that he had taken an interest!) had emailed to ask if I wanted to go up with him on Friday and look for it. Friday came and an emergency call from a friend prevented a visit, so it’d have to be Saturday. However checking for sightings on Friday I found Martin had found the bird and had also been struck by its appearance. See the entries for 5^th & 6^th November on Martin’s blog http://www.birdingfrontiers.com/ . Full credit should go to Martin for applying his deep knowledge and curiosity, and having the audacity to publicly name such a little known bird. Other then a brief reappearance for a lucky few gathered on Blacka Hill in the failing light of late afternoon 6^th November, and despite much searching, the shrike has not been relocated.

‘Steppe’ Grey Shrike  Lanius excubitor homeyeri at Blacka Moor, South Yorkshire. Copyright Martin Garner 2010.

Postscript: Confirmation of identification was provided from both Lars Svensson and world authority on shrikes Eugeniy Panov. The latter’s response was particularly charming as, with apparently no photos of young homeyeri in existence, he requested the use one of Martin’s photos of the Blacka Moor bird to illustrate his new book! The record will still have to be adjudicated by both the British Birds Rarities Committee and, as a new taxon for Britain, the British Ornithologist’s Records Committee, but so far things are looking promising.