Thursday, March 28, 2024
Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Nature Calls: On the hunt for a great grey shrike – the ‘butcher bird’

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Nature Calls

The great grey shrike – a small bird with a big reputation (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

It’s one of those days when the sun never really wins out over the gloaming and the drizzle.

We’re at Hothfield Heathlands Nature Reserve in Kent and it’s so grey the only warmth is coming from the burnt orange of the leaves.

What has brought us here is the hope of seeing a great grey shrike. These masked and hook-billed bandits are known as butcher birds for their practice of impaling their prey on thorns at their ‘larder’ – prey that includes beetles and small mammals or reptiles.

These are rare winter visitors to the UK – less than 100 stay here with a just few more than that again passing through. They favour heathland such as here at Hothfield, where the bird we are hoping for was first reported on November 10, two weeks ago at the time of our visit.

The reserve is heathland and bog, the only example of its kind in the county. It is made up of gorse and heather, silver birch, alder and oak.

All is grey above but below, brown leaf fall from oaks carpet the ground. Red-trunked salix saplings grow in the wet meadow. Yellow gorse flower clings on. The grass is bright green and the bracken a burnt ginger.

Hothfield Heathlands, Kent

Dawn over Hothfield Heathlands, Kent (Picture: FLPA/REX/Shutterstock)

Heavy plant machinery is being used to clear the birch and alder scrub, which, unchecked, would turn the place into woodland. Vital habitat and its species would be lost. The woodland would suck the bog dry, its peat releasing carbon back into the atmosphere.

Konik ponies graze alongside Highland cattle, both of which help with keeping back the scrub. The cattle are the same colour as the trees, which approach their autumn best.

Konik ponies graze on the heath

Konik ponies graze on the heath (Picture: FLPA/REX/Shutterstock)

A Highland cow

A Highland cow walking through heather and bracken on Hothfield Heathlands (Picture: FLPA/REX/Shutterstock)

As the days grow shorter and gloomier, leaves produce less chlorophyll, which gives them their green colour as well as turning daylight into energy.

And as the green fades, the oranges and yellows come out. In a sense, then, the leaves do not turn brown, rather their inner ‘brown-ness’ is revealed.

A great grey shrike and its prey

A great grey shrike and its prey (Picture: Shutterstock/David Kalosson)

In some trees and in certain conditions – more sunlight late in the season, less rainfall – changes occur in the level of another chemical, anthocyanins. These are formed as the tree tries to squeeze the last energy from the year’s sun. When this happens the leaves turn shades of red.

We spend three hours at Hothfield until the gloaming turns to dusk. We don’t see the shrike – and there are no further reports in the days after – but there is warmth among the mizzle and colour beneath the grey. The day has not been a wasted one.


MORE : Nature Calls: In search of wonderful winter visitors at Abberton Reservoir


MORE : Nature Calls: The Sabine’s gull is a rare Arctic visitor that doesn’t shy away

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