After arriving I ended up beside a group of guys looking through their scopes at the bird feeing on the opposite side of the reservoir. By the time I walked over I had told a dozen or so other birders who were looking in the wrong area where to go.
Following me our caravan of birders arrived, quiet footed and without flushing the bird, which remained for a long while posing on the rocks and feeding on the grassy bank.
Its such a privileged to get up close of personal with wryneck, their cryptic camouflage plumage and shy nature can make them particularly difficult to see at times.
European-breeding wrynecks winter in Africa, returning to their breeding grounds at the same time as the cuckoo, giving the bird its old country name of the cuckoo’s mate. This bird would be on its way south back to Africa.
