I don't mind admitting that I was a bit cheesed off when I received a text message from my colleague Mark on Friday lunchtime: 'There's a great grey shrike on the new clearfell!' It wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear, as I was somewhere between Beverley and Bridlington - nearly 150 miles away - at the time... However, I think I got my own back. While my workmates were still tucked up in bed, early Saturday morning saw me exploring clifftop fields on the East Yorkshire coast (just up the road from our Bempton Cliffs reserve). It was another gloriously sunny, chilled start to the day, and the area was heaving with birds.
We walked up the narrow lane, hemmed in by thick hedgerows backlit by the low sun. Every few steps, blackbirds clattered out of the hawthorns - probably newly-arrived migrants from across the North Sea. More Scandinavian thrushes were overhead - fieldfares chuckled and redwings 'seeeped' as they made landfall. There were wheezy calls from a handful of bramblings and a merlin zapped across in front of us, in search of prey.
I find migration endlessly fascinating, but on this occasion it was the area's resident birds that really grabbed me. Farmland birds - species that are in so much trouble across most of the UK - were everywhere!
To my right was a clump of brambles harbouring a gaggle of linnets and reed buntings. On my left, a scruffy strip of wild bird cover was groaning under the weight of tree sparrows clambering up plant stems, busily devouring every seed they could find. Down the track, the hedge was studded with canary-bright yellowhammers, and we heard the rasping 'krrrrrrr!' of a grey partridge. Over the stubble fields, the air was rich with skylarks and their song.
All this got me thinking... what must the countryside have been like 100 or even 50 years ago, when these birds were still common and widespread everywhere? Will I be able to experience it in my lifetime?