Britain 'the only country in Europe from which Wrynecks have become extirpated as breeding birds'.

                                                      

Gerard Gorman's fascinating study of a remarkable species

WHO would ever think of scanning seaweed in the hope of glimpsing a . . . Wryneck?

According to a  book dedicated to the species, migrating Wrynecks "often forage among rocks and seaweed on beaches, presumably searching for fly larvae, sandhoppers and the like".

However, their preferred diet consists of ants which they like to seek out on mosaic habitats that comprise traditional farmed pastures, meadows, patches of rock or barren ground and trees.

They also favour former military bases which have reverted to grasslands and abandoned industrial and mining site with pioneering vegetation.

In his entertaining and authoritative book, The Wryneck, Gerard Gorman laments the disappearance in Great Britain of a bird which was once a widespread and relatively common breeding summer resident.

The last nesting records for our islands were of a pair in Buckinghamshire in 1985 and one in Ross-shire in 2002.

Writes the author: "Regrettably, Britain has the ignominy of being the only country in Europe from which Wrynecks have become extirpated as breeding birds."

What went wrong? The author, an expert on the world's woodpecker family, of which the Wryneck is one, acknowleges that degradation of habitat may be a factor, but it is probably not the only one.

The decline of the Wryneck set in as far back as the late 1800s, long before the introduction of agro-chemicals and the intensification of how orchards, a favourite habitat, were managed.

What is more, there has been no comparable demise in the Green Woodpecker, a species which has similar habitat and feeding requirements.

On the plus side, Wrynecks (up to about 300 a year) still occur on migration in Britain, prompting hopes, admittedly slim, that the bird may yet return as a breeder.

To UK birders, the author's exploration of the collapse of the Wryneck is perhaps the most intriguing part of his narrative, but the remaining 200 or so pages are also full of fascinating information based both on his own research and his study of authoritative articles by other ornithologists.

The species' behaviour, its diet, its worldwide distribution, its favoured habitats and its place in folklore and mythology are all covered in absorbing detail.

Published at £24.99 by Pelagic Publishing (https://pelagicpublishing.com), The Wryneck is available wherever good books are sold