Finnish Focus On... Red Backed Shrike

Red Backed Shrikes are one of the joys of Summer birding in Finland, and one of those species, rare in Ireland, that reminds me how spoiled I am with the selection of birds I see these days. 


This juv was one I found on my beloved Mizen. Needless to say my views in Finland tend to be somewhat better.

Whilst I saw many of these over the years in Ireland, I only ever found two of my own, and so I take the time to appreciate Red Backeds when I see them here, which is frequently.



Female Red Backed Shrike - compared to their grey cousins, there's something very cute and sweet about Red Backeds.



Male Red Backed Shrike - there's something very pleasing to the eye when it comes to the simple colours of male Red Backeds. Why do we humans often find simple color patterns so striking?


Juvenile Red Backed Shrike - by August the juvs will be out, occupying any fence line they can find, the intricate scalloping of their plumage reminding me of September and October in Cork.





Female Red Backed Shrike - stick piles, a regular feature of the Finnish rural landscape, built up every autumn as growth is cut back, and winds work over the trees, provide ideal perching and hiding habitat for Shrikes. Watch them as you drive through the countryside and you will clock dozens of Red Backeds on any given trip. 


Red Backed Shrike is not just a rural bird here either, this photo was taken without optics in the botanic gardens in Helsinki, where you can usually find a breeding pair.


On my old patch of Laajalahti, a pair would usually be present in the flooded birches.



Male - Laajalahti





Stunning Male - Red Backed Shrike - up close that male plumage starts to give us more subtle tones. Pinks, oranges, whites and silvers. Just great birds. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finnish Focus On...Taiga And Tundra Bean Geese

Image
Have been meaning to write a post on Tundra and Taiga Bean Goose identification for a while now. Wildfowl are my guilty pleasure. I've always enjoyed looking for them. The escape issue turns a lot of people off them. Grey geese can turn people off further still. Since moving to Finland, being able to spend long hours in the field watching both types of Bean Goose has been a joy, especially considering how rare they are in Ireland.  Tundra Bean Geese are the far commoner species to occur here, making them the easier to photograph and so a good place to start. Tundra Bean Goose Tundra Bean Goose - careful assessment of structure is most important when identifying bean geese. Whilst there are size differences between the smaller Tundra and larger Taiga, this plays out most obviously in their structure and shape. Both species, rear on, can be extremely difficult to pick apart without the structural clues visible. The head and bill structure are crucial in Bean Goose identification. Thi...
Read more

How To Be A Rarity Finder

Image
A recent statistic popped up in my various social media memories.  To date I've been birding on 4 continents, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, and found rare birds on each of them. Pretty happy with that. 😎 So thought a post on how to go about finding rarities and importantly, how to BE a rarity finder was worth throwing up. They may sound like the same thing, but I have different views on both. One is methodology. The other is an outlook. Combine the best of both and you will achieve your goals. First up, the Methodology . 1. KNOW YOUR BIRDS This is an obvious one (though people may have different perceptions on what this takes.)  It stands to reason though, that to find a Lesser Yellowlegs as a vagrant, you're going to have to know what a Redshank looks like (in all plumages)...and Greenshank ...and Wood Sandpiper ...and then...just to be really fecking sure... Greater Yellowlegs, Stilt Sandpiper and Marsh Sandpiper too. Lesser Yellowlegs - I've found 6 Lesser...
Read more

Racism and Bigotry in Birding

Image
It's hard to pick up a newspaper these days and not read about something the new moniker "alt-right" are up to. The rise of racism to more mainstream levels is undeniable. Do we, as birders, need to have this discussion though? Do we know it's out there, among us? I'm pretty sure we do. It's tempting to believe the best about yourself, and this extrapolates to ourselves as a group; as birders. It's tempting to believe that the hobby of birding, taking place in nature, with a holistic, interconnected view of nature, would not harbour backwards, ignorant, scumbag neanderthals, that would discriminate on the basis of colour, creed, ethnicity, sex or sexual preference...over the past two years I've learned, sadly, that this temptation would lead you to the wrong conclusion. Birding, like any other microcosm of humanity, has it's share of these regrettable people. When I say over the past two years, I mean, perhaps, I have been just as ...
Read more