We arrived at our apartment in Bohinjska Bistrica two days ago, and almost the
first bird I saw from the balcony, in the garden below, was a male red-backed
shrike. It was on a fence in full sunlight, about 10m away, a stunning bird!
Unfortunately, I've not seen it so close since, but it does still patrol the
perimeter of the garden, and today I watched it hunting insects and chasing
small birds to add to its larder.
Other birds present over the past couple of days, singing male redstart and
black redstart, plus a singing serin. Then tonight, just as we were about to
go out for our evening meal, a hobby shot into the garden and started chasing
sparrows. Breathtaking!
Edit 08/06/2026: Over the past three days I've watched the male patrolling the boundaries of the garden and adjacent field and not once seen another shrike. There's one area of scrub in the field which the male keeps returning to and is probably where the nest is. Today when the male reached this area, this bird popped out and started following it. It's not a great photo but it appears to be a female rather than a juvenile.
With views like this, who needs to leave the apartment?
I think that the red-backed shrikes nest is in the area of scrub near the top of the hill.
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