This is the season when many migrant birds are passing through the UK on their way to their winter residences. Among them is an elusive species that occasionally transits Kent: the wryneck. According to the RSPB, fewer than 300 come through the UK on passage, and none breed here.
Wrynecks are members of the woodpecker family. Most woodpeckers are insectivorous, and this is the case with the wrynecks too: typically, they eat ants using a long sticky pink tongue to extract them from their colonies. The birds that we get here in the UK are Jynx torquilla; the species name comes from the Latin torquilla which means "twist". The bird's neck is amazingly twistable, seemingly giving it an excellent view all round without having to move its body. They are quite small, only about 16cm (smaller than a blackbird) and exceptionally well camouflaged, with a beautiful cryptic pattern of browns that makes them extremely hard to spot in the undergrowth or bushes.
The long, sticky pink tongue retrieves ants from a colony
A few weeks ago, I was alerted on Twitter to the presence of a wryneck at Swalecliffe on the north Kent coast. I had never seen one previously, and despite being a dedicated non-twitcher, that was too good an opportunity to miss. However, it had taken about three days for me to catch up with the news, so I had some trepidation that I had missed it; nevertheless, more in hope than expectation, I set off one morning to see if I could find its location next to a football pitch. I made the assumption that this would be pretty much impossible, but it seemed worth a go. The satellite view on Google maps helped me locate a football pitch next to a brook that fitted the Twitter description. In the event, I need not have worried about not finding its whereabouts: an audience of perhaps 20 people was already encamped on the edge of the football pitch when I arrived. They were all very sociable, and made me most welcome - so, if any of you happen to be reading this, thank you!
It took a little while, but eventually there was a stirring among the audience, and pointing at a bush. An anonymous-looking LBJ was next to it. On looking through binoculars, far from being a boring LBJ, it was my quarry, in beautiful camouflage. Over the next couple of hours, it made several appearances, disappearing into cover and then reappearing to get its next tongue-full of ants. There were several ant heaps that it flitted between, as well as bushes and trees for cover. A brook further behind provided water: its favourite food, water and shelter - what more could a bird want from its short term motel on the way to Africa? Eventually, it seemed to disappear and not come back, so I gave up for the day. Next morning, I heard that it had moved on. I didn't get the greatest pictures, but bearing in mind how rare and hard to spot these small birds are, I'm delighted to have got anything at all.
A month later, last week, I was up at Oare marshes, chatting to a couple of spotters with their scopes; they had a lovely view of a pair of stonechats. All of a sudden, one of then exclaimed "Wryneck!" It was hard to see, but eventually I found it. It did not stay in its original location long, but I saw it flying further down the path. I gingerly pursued it, and eventually saw it again on an ant heap by a bush a bit further off the path. I got quite a lot of pictures of it as it fished for ants with its long tongue. It was quite far away, and at the limit of what I could usefully photograph. So, as they are rather deep crops from the original files, I'm just putting up a compilation of 4 pictures from that encounter here.
Two separate wrynecks in the space of about a month - a complete knockout! I've heard it suggested that easterly winds have blown more of them into the UK this year on their way from Scandinavia to Africa.
Incidentally, I had a comment on Flickr asking if the wryneck is a cousin of the nighthawk/nightjar as they have rather similar appearances. I looked on NCBI taxonomy to see how related they are. The wryneck is a member of the Piciformes , and nightjars are members of the Caprimulgimorphae (the same group as swifts and hummingbirds). Wikipedia suggest that ancestral Piciformes were present in the early Eocene (more than 30 million years ago). Likewise, ancestral Caprimulgimorphae were around more than 30 million years ago. So the last common ancestor of the nighthawks/nightjars and the wrynecks must date to more than 30 million years ago. Both groups of birds are wonderfully adapted with visually similar camouflage to suit their respective niches, but they are not particularly close cousins.
All pictures taken with the Nikon D500 and 500mm f/5.6 PF lens