{"id":1137,"date":"2025-08-28T17:29:59","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T17:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bundellbros.co.uk\/birdswildlifeplaces\/?p=1137"},"modified":"2025-08-28T17:30:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T17:30:00","slug":"wryneck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bundellbros.co.uk\/birdswildlifeplaces\/wryneck\/","title":{"rendered":"Wryneck"},"content":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s a funny looking sparrow, I thought. Female house sparrow ? It was hardly three yards away on the garden path, but my view was compromised by the raindrops on the back-door glass.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ting-Wei (\u5ef7\u7dad) HUNG (\u6d2a) – https:\/\/macaulaylibrary.org\/photo\/45438521<\/a><\/h6>\n

A wryneck ! I never knew they were so small. A member of the woodpecker family. I thought they\u2019d be about Greater Spotted size. Not so. Sparrow sized. But intricately striped, barred, dotted and mottled in brown and black and grey-white \u2013 with orange spots on the wing I notice. Nature\u2019s riposte to the most delicate weavings of humans. Jynx torquilla <\/em>by the way. One of only two wryneck species \u2013 the other lives in Africa \u2013 and a summer visitor to the UK. It used to be a common breeding bird in England. Now it is usually seen \u2013 when seen – just passing by.[1]<\/a><\/sup> It dines mostly on ants.<\/p>\n

\u2018He is a singular bird\u2019 says W H Hudson[2]<\/a><\/sup>, and observes that \u2018his beauty only appears when he is seen very near.\u2019 I was lucky to see him so close-up then, despite the raindrops.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. This was in the month of August. \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. British Birds<\/em>, W H Hudson, Longmans Green, 1921 p 186 \u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    That\u2019s a funny looking sparrow, I thought. Female house sparrow ? It was hardly three yards away on the garden path, but my view was compromised by the raindrops on the back-door glass. Ting-Wei (\u5ef7\u7dad) HUNG (\u6d2a) – https:\/\/macaulaylibrary.org\/photo\/45438521 A wryneck ! I never knew they were so small. A member of the woodpecker family. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[212,211],"class_list":["post-1137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-woodpecker-family","tag-wryneck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bundellbros.co.uk\/birdswildlifeplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bundellbros.co.uk\/birdswildlifeplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bundellbros.co.uk\/birdswildlifeplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bundellbros.co.uk\/birdswildlifeplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bundellbros.co.uk\/birdswildlifeplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bundellbros.co.uk\/birdswildlifeplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1139,"href":"https:\/\/bundellbros.co.uk\/birdswildlifeplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions\/1139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bundellbros.co.uk\/birdswildlifeplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bundellbros.co.uk\/birdswildlifeplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bundellbros.co.uk\/birdswildlifeplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}