The Ballaghennie Ayres Southern Grey Shrike, Revisited
Before I start with this look back at what was a such beautiful and enigmatic bird, I should stress that I have no axe to grind with the people to whom I have referred and that I just thought the record should be set straight in light of the article published in the ‘Peregrine, Manx Bird Reports 2002 and 2003’.
On the early evening of 17th June, 2003 I received a message from Chris Sharpe which said that there was a ‘possible’ Great Grey Shrike frequenting the heath adjacent to the Visitor Centre at Ballaghennie Ayres NR. Several frantic calls were made to the rest of the Isle of Man Birding ‘crew’ by my wife, to alert them to the bird’s presence.
During the ‘hairy’ journey to the reserve along the winding coast road, I had time to reflect on this record. My initial reaction was “Wow, that’s a strange thing to be tuning up in June” (Great Grey Shrikes are, traditionally, winter visitors to the British Isles) and I was considering the possibility that it was most likely a Lesser Grey Shrike from eastern Europe and the Mediterranean being, as they are, predominantly Spring/Summer vagrants.
On arriving at the site there were just 3 birders watching the bird at a range of about 30 metres. As soon as I raised my binoculars I immediately knew that we were not dealing with a Lesser Grey Shrike due to the lack of black on the forehead of the bird. However, something was not right. The bird was considerably paler than any of the 20 or so Northern Greys I had seen previously in the UK and even paler than the grey shrikes I had seen in North Africa, so I set about the arduous task of noting all the feather detail I could.
Apart from the obvious pallor of the bird, it was apparent that it didn’t have any white in the secondaries and that the outer pairs of tail feathers were wholly white – something not shown by Northern Grey. So, what was it?
Over the next 4 weeks I spent approximately 80 hours studying the bird and compiled some fairly detailed notes and an extensive library of photographs showing the bird in all manner of postures and even a couple of flight shots. It soon became clear that the bird was a Southern Grey Shrike, but what race?
On the very first day of it’s discovery I mentioned to Kevin Scott in a phone call that it could possibly be the central Asian race, pallidirostris ( a race that had occurred at least 15 or 16 times previously in the UK, but only in winter).
During the bird’s stay, and for several months subsequent, I contacted various people who had experience with pallidirostris, and even some who had just returned to the UK from ringing them in their breeding range of Kazakhstan. One critical piece of information came to light during these investigations – the literature on the identification of this race was very out-of-date and wholly inaccurate in some cases. The most frequent misconception being that pallidirostris shows a pale base to the lower mandible and pale lores in all plumages. It turned out that only juvenile and 1st winter birds have this feature (all previous UK records were of birds of this age) and that 1st summer and adult bird have all dark bills and dark grey (rarely black) lores. Furthermore, the literature stated that they should have a long primary projection. The length of a bird’s primary projection is always a very difficult (some would say impossible) thing to determine without direct comparison, but all I could say was the bird didn’t appear to be particularly short-winged (despite confident claims to the contrary). Several people were basing their racial assignation on these two features and calling it as the elegans race from North Africa (a race never before recorded in the British Isles and considered to be sedentary).
Comments on the article published in ‘Peregrine, The Manx Bird reports 2002 and 2003’ by John Thorpe.
In the latest Manx Bird Report, John Thorpe recounts his reasoning behind his contention that the bird was a Southern Grey Shrike Lanius Meriodionalis of the race elegans.
In the article he states that the bird had black lores. This is obviously wrong as can be seen in the photographs linked to below:
The lores are dark grey and the feature could be seen clearly at all times.
He also states that there was no white over the bill but, whilst it was usually difficult to see, there were occasions when this feature was apparent – especially in Pete Hadfield’s photo (below) taken on the very 1st day of it’s stay.
Concerning the perceived shortness of the primary projection (referred to in the article) my contacts that had been ringing the pallidirostris birds in Kazakhstan stated that, whilst not as long as some adult birds (primary length is believed to vary) it was within the range of that race. But, more importantly, the timing of the bird’s moult (evident from the retained, brown, juvenile inner primaries) was said to be conclusive for that race.
Reference is made in the article to his examination of skins at Tring. It should be obvious by now that these skins had been assigned to race and species based on very out-of-date identification criteria. Others, who also examined the same skins, stated to me that several specimens were wrongly assigned. Mr.Thorpe makes reference to his belief that elegans is as pale as pallidirostris this is not the case. I have seen several grey shrikes in north Africa and they never appeared as pale as the Manx bird. Indeed, if anything, they appeared darker than the Northern birds that regularly spend the winter in the UK. Extensive research by me (and others) produced no such pale examples of elegans.
Finally, in the article it is suggested that the bird may have died due to starvation or even have been taken by a raptor. Myself and Stuart Thomas (the then Ayres Warden) were the last people to see the bird alive on 12th. July and it appeared in good health. Indeed, whilst I was watching it, the bird produced a pellet indicating that it had been feeding within the last 24 hours (see photo 5). Examination of the pellet showed it to contain many beetle wing-cases and the fur of at least one rodent. Given that the bird had been ranging further across the heath for the last few days of observation, I believe that it may well have simply 'moved on'.
So, to conclude, all the identification criteria used in the article (which concludes that the bird was elegans) is not borne out by current knowledge and only serves to show the dangers of relying on out-of-date literature.
The bird was accepted as a Southern Grey Shrike of the race pallidirostris by the British Birds Rarities Committee based, not only on my photographs and notes, but also those of the many people who saw the bird and studied it closely.
Chris Wormwell
January 2005
