WRYNECK AT DEAN CLOUGH RESERVOIR

 17th Sept. 1994

by Tony Disley

Around midday on 17^th September 1994, I was at my local patch Dean Clough Reservoir, just NE of Blackburn, after having a reasonable mornings birding with a Buzzard West and good numbers of Meadow Pipits, I started to make my way home.

As I reached the stile at the west end of upper Dean Clough reservoir, I flushed a passerine from the ground by a patch of Juncus, which disappeared into a small tree.

I didn’t see much on the bird as it flew up and it just appeared a nondescript grey-brown. I walked closer to the tree when the bird flew out and appeared to land in the grass further ahead. By this stage I still had not seen the bird properly and was become inquisitive as to what it was.

On approaching the area of grass it dropped into, it again quickly flew up to a small tree but it was still not visible. I then walked up to the tree but this time flushed only a handful of Meadow Pipits.

I now thought I’d lost whatever it was and so carried on along the Sheep track when I noticed some movement ahead of me on the track. I raised my binoculars expecting yet another Meadow Pipit and could just make out a head back on through the grass, the bird raised it’s head and neck and turned to look at me. It was a fantastic Wryneck !!!!

Just then it flew with some Meadow Pipits to a fallen, dead tree where it perched just long enough to get a good view through my scope as it sat perched surrounded by Meadow Pipits, before flying off back towards the stile and disappearing.

Eventually after hours searching with 6 other birders I relocated it a few hundred yards away in a ditch, it remained in the area up to dusk and was seen well and enjoyed by 20 birders.

Sadly, visiting birders the next morning found remains of the Wryneck, mainly tail feathers in the ditch where it was last seen at dusk, a sad end for a truly stunning bird.

Another West coast Wryneck was also found on the 17^th near Glasgow, both these birds occurred after classic fall conditions from the 15^th onwards produced large numbers of Scandinavian migrants. How many others slipped through unseen and do so every autumn?

All records of Wryneck recorded in East Lancashire (all involving single birds):

1966: near Burnley 29 August (IC)

1970: Oswaldtwistle 13 May (SW)

1984: Naden Valley, Rossendale 26 & 27 August (ROC)

1986: Reedley, Burnley 13 May (ELOC)

1987: Worsthorne, nr Burnley 2 September (ELOC)

1994: Dean Clough Reservoir 17 September (ASD)

1996: Langden Valley, Bowland 15 September (WA, AMcC)

Tony Disley