Butcher Bird comes to Barnes
Birdwatchers at WWT London Wetland Centre were thrilled to see a rare male Red-Backed Shrike on the reserve at the weekend.
The Shrike is also known as the Butcher Bird due to its habit of storing prey such as beetles and bees in a ‘larder’, impaled on thorns. The Red-Backed Shrike remained at London Wetland Centre for two days, where visitors enjoyed good views of the bird from the new Headley Discovery Hide.
The Red-Backed Shrike was once common in the UK, nesting in almost every English and Welsh county. However in the 1990s it became extinct as breeding bird in the UK, its decline accelerated by the activities of egg collectors.
In the last few years a pair has returned to Dartmoor, but it remains a Red List species and is now only usually spotted while on migration.
