How far?

Every Winter we get an influx of birds from the Arctic or Scandinavian regions to our shores. Some are totally unexpected whereas others are predictable. A classic for the latter group is the great grey shrike. Although never in large numbers we must get dozens over wintering on our shores. Many of them end up in the south on the heaths around London. They are carnivorous in habit, hunting for small mammals, birds, reptiles and insects from exposed perches. The heaths give them a perfect hunting ground. They also tend to be very site loyal, returning to the same patch year after year. This means that once they arrive they can be quite predictable. I often go for one on Thursley common but that seems not to have arrived yet. One has been showing well in Ashford Forest in Sussex. A number of people I know have already been for it so with a bit of time free and nice weather I headed out after rush-hour was over.
It was a gorgeous day when I finally got there, passing though the almost continuous roadworks once you got onto the M23! A small group of birders were scanning the site. It was a good-sized valley, with us on one side looking out across heather, grasslands and trees both in leaf and dead. The news was no show though! Although site loyal they can range over vast areas and you are looking for one bird. I set in for a potentially long morning. There was a dead tree near us which was described as "its favourite perch". The fact that two or three people were constantly under it hopefully pointing lenses at it I thought was not such a good idea though!!! One bloke said he had spent six hours by that tree three days ago and it only popped onto the tree very briefly so how can it be its favourite tree. I think I know the problem there but no point having a row so I moved off a bit down the ridge.
Two ladies then appeared round the corner. "did you see it?" they asked. They had seen it way off in the distance. After a confusing series of descriptions about lollipop shaped trees we worked out where they were looking. It was right on the far side of the valley, probably a mile away!!!! Through the 'scope you could see a bird perched out on a tree, swaying in the wind. With a bit of imagination you could call it as the shrike. It was clearly hunting, dropping off the perch then returning but was too far off to see if it caught anything. With the view so distant I decided to walk round the valley to get a bit closer.
It took me I suppose 15 minutes but eventually I got to an area of open grassland. You could see the shrike much better from here as it hunted from the trees.

 It was quite flighty though and without any obvious cover I couldn't approach too close to it. I watched it for 10 or 15 minutes but it didn't seem to catch anything of any size. It finally gave up and flew off strongly in the direction of where we were first. I went back to that area where the crowd had now reached about 20 in number. For the next two hours the shrike showed "well but distantly". This means it was normally massively far away and sometimes only pretty far away.

Once it came a bit nearer to us but again the sheer closeness and number of people near its "favourite" tree was madness. It flew straight past us and onto the far side. Other people seemed to get closer in the valley itself but it looked like you needed a good modicum of luck as it was very mobile.  It should be there all winter though so I may pop back and have another go later on, probably not by its tree though!!!!