Saturday 5th September

I made a couple of visits to Burgess Field today to look for yesterday's Wryneck though I haven't yet had precise details on the location so it was a bit of a shot in the dark. In the absence of anything concrete I concentrated my search in the south east corner though there was no sign of it. I did hear one or more SISKINS calling and managed to see a couple of LESSER WHITETHROATS along with the commoner warblers whilst I was rummaging through the hedgerows.

On the Meadow itself I found a HOBBY hunting Swallows. The Swallows were flying rather low so the Hobby flew higher and would make periodic dives on them, twisting and turning with incredible speed. When it failed to catch one it would shoot up to its higher vantage point again. From a distance this shooting up and down was almost like the mating dance of a Mayfly, so regular was the pattern. It was so fast and agile that it was only a matter of time before it caught one which it soon did, flying off to consume it at its leisure.

Chiffchaff courtesy of Robert Widdowson

Update
I've now managed to speak to the Wryneck finder. He saw the bird well for 5 or 10 minutes and though he's not entirely sure of where it was exactly it sounds like it was in the east side of either the first or second field up from the southern end in the Hawthorn hedge. Using my new field labelling system this would be 1E or 2E - see my new map in the map section for details.

Note, this was in fact the general area that I was searching today so it's either skulking (a distinct possibility) or it's gone.

Record shot of the Wryneck from James Grant