On the 12th November I was sitting at the computer wondering what to do with the day, when I had a text from Lisa asking if I would be willing to drive over to Shoreham as she was desperate for a power lead for her laptop. Her spare one was here in Seaford, and her Shoreham one had gone wrong. As she had a full day of teaching she couldn't get over. Well, as I had no plans, I decided I might as well head over there with the spare lead and to go for a walk along the River Adur to look for owls.
It was around 3 oclock when I parked up at Beeding and a slow walk along the river followed. At just before 3.30 I saw a black and white bird drop down into a reedbed some distance away. I thought it looked a little bit like a Great Grey Shrike, but with the distance it could also well have been something much more common.
I kept the binoculars focessed on the area as I waited and hoped it would fly again. When it did less than a minute later, it was very clear that it was indeed a Great Grey Shrike. It landed at the far end of a hedgerow, but quickly flew again to the other end of that hedgerow which was right where I was standing. I didn't have time to change the camera settings, as it was now straight up with sky behind it, so it was just a silhoette. After 5 very quick shots the bird flew again to a fencepost some distance away. I tried getting closer, but it soon flew over the river, where I only had more distant views of the bird on the top of bushes. My last sighting of it was 15 minutes after I had first seen the bird, and it very quickly went into hiding as a Barn Owl flew over it.
I contacted Matt up in Scotland, and he quickly got the news out, but by now it was getting dark, so no-one else was going to get there in time. Fortunately though, the bird did hang around for another 6 or 7 days, albeit generally very distant.
It was very much a case of being in the right place at the right time!!
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