The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Woke up this morning to the unlikely sight of a Wryneck walking down the path of my back garden in Louth!

Roger,
Brilliant!! About 20 years ago I remember a neighbour brought me a dead Wryneck which had flown into his window in Market Rasen! That and one in a Nettleton garden about 4 years ago are the only inland sightings I can recall.

Thanks Stuart. It only stayed a minute two before flying off - not even long enough to get a decent photo, only a very poor record shot.

SUPERB

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Regards
Dean Eades



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If I saw a wryneck walking down my garden, I would explode with joy and disbelief. . . unquestionably.

Then, I would make sure there were no cats in the vicinity.

Incidentally, does anyone know when and where wrynecks last bred in Lincolnshire? Or was it many years before people started keeping records?

Hello Jim

I found the following link on the internet and this is an extract from it.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1 ... 6309476045

In the north of England, the Wryneck was regular in both Cumberland
and Durham until the 1830's by when it had apparently become much
less common, and at about the same time was noted as decreasing in
Lancashire. As early as the 1830's a definite reduction in numbers was
also noticed in Derbyshire, Essex and Suffolk, and a few years later
in the Isle of Wight (Fig. r and Table r). It was disappearing from
Yorkshire, except in the south and southeast of the West Riding, in the
186o's or earlier, and has been recorded in the breeding season only rarely
since then. By about this time it was also very rare as a breeding bird
in Lincolnshire.

Roy

Thanks for tracking down that info, Roy.

I hadn't realised its demise began so long ago - well before changes in agricultural practices
and other environmental considerations.

A real shame for such a mesmering bird, but I take heart that sightings of migrating birds seem to have increased in recent years.

from the Birds of Lincolnshire 1952:

According to Blathwayt the Wryneck was still a rare summer visitor to the county in 1914, nesting in woodlands chiefly in the south-west and less frequently, in the north-west and elsewhere. there is no evidence when it ceased to nest, but there have been no definite records since 1914.
Atkin and Lorand state that Blathwayt recorded a few nesting in the Lincoln area until 1918

Simon Holloway the Historical Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland 1875-1900
At the end of the 19th century the Wryneck bred over most of lowland England. It was common in much of SE England, becoming rarer towards the north and west, and bred as far as the foothills of the Pennines and the Cambrian Mountains.

The decline appears to have affected populations throughout the species' range in Britain. No explanation was given for the decrease but it does appear to have begun in the main breeding range no earlier than around the 1870's.
The Wryneck may have provided one of the few documented examples of the effects on birds of the deterioration of grassland during the agricultural depression (Peal 1968).

there is a lot more text in the book above - a useful read on the declines of many species

Thanks, Graham, for the further info and references.

In Birds Britannica, authors Marck Cocker and Richard Mabey refer to William Yarrell who apparently noted that it was " a common species that was widely kept as a pet by country children"!

Given that its plumage is predominantly mottled grey-brown like the nightjar and woodcock, is there a possibility that the species might be partially nocturnal? The pattern of afternoon behaviour of one of the birds seen recently at Spurn was to alternate between periods of frenetic feeding activity to periods (more than an hour) of total immobility (apparently roosting). It made me wonder if this might also be the same pattern of behaviour after dark.

Or do many/most diurnal birds have an afternoon nap?