Woodchat Shrikes.

When you see a Woodchat Shrike in the UK it's a nice find, not a huge deal but still worth going to see for bird listers. However, all the shrikes usually seen in the UK, (except for some very isolated breeding of Red Backed for instance which is kept 'Quiet' for obvious reasons) are single birds. On Lesvos it is still usually single birds that are photographed, although they obviously breed in numbers there. We came across a pair as I mentioned in a previous blog when the female bird was quite confiding when she was out looking for food, allowing me to approach her quite closely. After this very nice encounter we carried on walking but on our return past their obvious nesting area, which we did not stop at to avoid disturbance, there was no sign of them. However, further on we could now see both male and female in a tree down the track. They were just contendedly perched next to each other totally ignoring our presence as we approached. I took a few shots from a distance which I thought the birds were comfortable with and we skirted around past them as they remained there just watching us walking past. A quite unusual situation to find two very nice quality birds posing nicely for a photograph - I wasn't complaining!