Great Grey Shrike Lanius excubitor
Great Grey Shrike numbers have fluctuated considerably over the last 50 years. The Atlas reports an average of 12 per year in the 1970s, six in the 1980s and four in the 1990s. LBR reports show that numbers dropped to only 2-3 per year in the 2000s, but then from 2010 numbers increased to a peak of 27 in 2013 falling to 19 in 2014 and down to 2 in 2018. The average in the last decade being around 11 per year. Most birds are autumn migrants and turn up on the coast between October 9th-14th onwards. Of 110 birds in the last 10 years only 10 are known to have overwintered in Lincolnshire. There were no reports after April 21st in the last five years.
Great Grey Shrike influx of 2013
This unprecedented influx began in late September when the first bird of the autumn arrived at Humberstone Fitties September 27th. There then followed a huge influx during October, with a few birds remaining to winter in the county. These birds were all recorded in October 2013 and all were coastal with the exception of the two seen inland at Burton le Coggles and Kexby :
Humberstone Fitties: 1-2 birds 12th-16th.
Donna Nook (Pye’s Hall-Howden’s Pullover): four on 12th-13th, six on 14th, five on 15th, one on 16th and three on 17th.
Gibraltar Point: two on 12th (one trapped), four on 13th-14th, two on 15th (one trapped), one on 16th, two on 17th-18th.
Seacroft Marsh: one on 14th.
Seacroft golf course: one on 14th, two on 15th (one trapped), one on 16th, two 17th-18th, one on 19th.
Saltfleet: one on 11th.
Huttoft village: one on 11th.
Saltfleetby-Theddlethorpe: one 12th-14th, 16th and 22nd.
North Cotes: one 13th.
Grimsby North Wall: one 17th.
Horseshoe Point: one 22nd.
Burton le Coggles: one 20th.
Kexby: one 27th.
Over-wintering birds 2013-2014
Blackmoor Bridge-Bassingham October 20th 2013-January 2nd 2014.
Butterwick Common November 10th 2013-April 10th 2014.
Aisby-Culverthorpe Lakes December 21st 2013-February 9th 2014.
The bird in the Bassingham area was ringed and a photograph showing part of the number, which left no reasonable doubt that this was a returning bird originally ringed at Gibraltar Point on November 4th 2012. Of interest was a bird found on the county boundary at Wroot on November 20th 2011-February 4th 2012. It was trapped at Spurn Point on November 7th and retrapped at Wroot on January 8th 2012. It showed some features of the southeastern European and southwestern Siberian race homeyeri but nothing was confirmed at either trapping or from photographs.
(Account as per new Birds of Lincolnshire (2021), included October 2022)