Newspaper columnist Jeremy Clarkson says farmland sighting of Great Grey Shrike made him 'delirious with joy'

                                          

Great Grey Shrike - a bird that often impales its prey on thorns and barbed wire

NEWSPAPER columnist and broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson has today revealed that a rare Great Grey Shrike that spent part of last year on his farm estate in Oxfordshire.

He kept the sighting under wraps for fear of his land being trampled - and the bird being disturbed - by an influx of twitchers.

Clarkson seldom misses an opportunity to poke fun at birders - and he does so in his column in today's edition of The Sun newspaper.

But, as some who have watched his farming show on Amazon Prime TV have probably long twigged, he is very proud and  protective of the Corn Buntings, Skylarks and other farmland species he regularly sees while at the wheel of his tractor or on walkabout of his fields.

And today, though mindful of announcing it for fear of being "ostracised" by his friends and "cancelled" by his bosses, he confirms that he has become a bona fide birder.

Of his moments watching the visiting shrike as it impaled large insects on barbed wire fences, he writes:  "I was delirious with joy.

"That's cooler than Steve McQueen power-sliding a Ferrari 275 GTS down the Amalfi Coast in Italy."

And does Clarkson have a target species? Apparently, it is one he has never seen before - a Green Woodpecker. 

The truth will out - Clarkson's confession

                                                                           

The revelations come in today's edition of The Sun newspaper