Turkestan Shrike at Dunwich Heath

On Friday 10th October, I was desperate to go for the long staying Turkestan Shrike, so just after first light I drove to Dunwich Heath, amazingly the car park was closed and wouldn't open until 9am. The National Trust were surely missing a trick here as early opening would have ensured parking and a healthy injection of cash as the fee was £6 for non-NT members. Instead I found a place to park right off the road, os I was not blocking any entrances or the road and I walked down to the bushes just 500 metres north of the Coastguard cottages. As I walked down on the right side of the road, the 'churring' of a Darford Warbler reavealed one just a foot away from me really close and too close to photograph! I could also hear constantly over the heath during my time here, the ongoing lovely 'lulula lulula' song of a Wood Lark and I eventually saw the bird fly left mid distance just over the heath on the other (west) side of the road (belated new bird for 2025!) As I walked to the group of bushes on the right side of the road, I took the well worn path down and joined 5 birders including 'Birds of the Heath' David B. Good to see him again. The bird, a fantastic Turkestan Shrike or Red- tailed Shrike, was soon seen perched low down in some bare branches. But slightly obscured we saw it side on then it disappeared deep into the scrub, I followed a lady birder who had seen the Shrike several times and this strategy paid off as the bird popped up barely 40 metres from us we both got around 10 metres closer with careful fieldcraft and the bird was perfectly happy nperched and this is where i got my best shots of the birds before a birder to the side of us shouted he had it and marched up to us (we were kneeling) and the bird promptly flew back. We later saw the fine Turkestan Shrike in bushes by the entrance road, where we all viewed from a path 60 metres away, the Shrike was very comfortable eher and went on several hunting forays catching various insects including dragonflies, beetles etc and feeding on them from its favourite perched from this bush. I watched from here for some time and David W. joined us. We also saw a rather showy but distant Dartford Warbler perched on top of a bush here too.