Friday 29 April 2011

A lifer and its pellet!

We finally got to Filey today to see the Woodchat Shrike that has been present for the last 4 days, a lifer for us and a cracking bird. It was approachable up to a point but flighty. I only got some record shots but what a pleasure.

A couple observing the bird which had been eating bees and caterpillars noticed it regurgitate a pellet, a bit of searching and the pellet was found which seemed to contain the bee stingers along with the other insect debris. The AA 'Birds of Britain & Europe' says, 'As with other shrikes indigestible food such as chitin, hair and bones is regurgitated in small, hard pellets'.

Record shots of a 'lifer'

 That pellet

2 comments:

Chris said...

Wow congrats on this life Mike. It is always nice to see something new and to get nice shots like this is a plus!!!

Roy said...

That was great to get the Shrike Mike, well done.