Bygone birding: artist-illustrator Eleazar Albin reflects on that most curious of birds, the Wryneck

                                         

Below is an extract  from a description by Eleazar Albin of the Wryneck in one of the first ornithological books, A Natural History of British Birds, published in 1731:

It strangely and ridiculously turns its head back to its shoulders.

It feeds upon ants which it strikes with its tongue, and then, contracting it, swallows them without ever touching them with its bill, having a glutinous matter sticking on the tongue. 

The hen is paler than the cock, being of a more cinereous colour.