Stunning visitors make trips inland

But some do head inland, with males seen this week on Grassington Moor, North Yorkshire, and on farmland near Broomhill Flash in the Dearne Valley in South Yorkshire.

A male was seen last week at Willerby Carr, just inland from Scarborough.

The male is a particularly stunning bird with a chestnut coloured back, creamy underparts with a rose flush a blue-grey cap and a black bandit mask through the eye.

The females and juveniles are plain brown and without the mask.

It is sad to think that red-backed shrikes were once widespread in this country but now all-but extinct here for reasons that are still not fully understood.

They once nested in a wide variety of habitats such as scrub, commons, heathland and waste land and were a familiar sight across much of England and Wales as far north as Cumbria.

Their decline was first noticed in the mid-19th century and continued in the 20th century until by 1950 numbers had dwindled to just 350 pairs confined to Hampshire, Surrey and East Anglia.

By 1988 there was only one pair left at Swanton Downham in Norfolk which successfully reared three young.

But the following year only the male returned and 1989 was the first year in Britain's ornithological history when at least one pair of red-backed shrikes failed to breed anywhere here.

Several factors have played their part. The shrike's beautiful subtly-coloured eggs proved all too attractive to illegal collectors and the theft of clutches could have been a major factor.

Scrub clearance, loss of heathland and the increased use of pesticides reducing the shrike's major food source of insects have also played their part. But most experts now think that climate changes, particularly warmer wetter summers in north-west Europe, are the main cause.

They also agree that the decline of the red-backed shrike in 19 other European countries including our close neighbours makes it very unlikely that they will return as a regular breeding species here in the foreseeable future.

The warmer weather of the past few weeks has seen the arrival of more cuckoos with at least four males calling in the Swillington Ings area, near Leeds.

It seems doubtful whether these late arrivals will be able to breed successfully. One theory for the cuckoo's decline is that some of its host species, such as dunnocks, pied wagtails and reed warblers, are now laying their eggs six days earlier than they once did leaving fewer opportunities for the female cuckoo to lay her eggs.

At least 10 pairs of marsh harriers are nesting at theBlacktoft Sands reserve, near Goole and more than 120 pairs of bearded tits which have produced lots of young which are showing well around the lagoons.

A bittern is being seen regularly on the reserve and there is a nest with one youngster in it.

Six avocets are on eggs while at Swillington Ings six pairs have produced 11 chicks with the prospect of more.

One avocet chick has been adopted by a pair of lapwings, emerging regularly from under the brooding females and causing her great agitation when it attempts to go for a swim.

A number of drake garganey have been seen, with three at Fairburn Ings near Castleford, two at Swillington, one at Backtoft Sands and one at Edderthorpe Flash, South Yorkshire.

A broad-billed sandpiper was seen at Port Clarence on Teesside, while a common rosefinch, a brown immature bird, was near the Warren

at Spurn.

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CW 12/6/10