The Cave House and the Grey Shrike
We leave Artenara and drive to Acusa Seca. My son’s booked a cave house for us for the night. It’s a house. In a cave. This is the scene which greets us as we arrive:
![Gran Canaria - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Gran-Canaria-The-Hall-of-Einar-6354-725x408.jpg)
It’s changing rapidly.
![Gran Canaria - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Gran-Canaria-The-Hall-of-Einar-2-725x544.jpg)
Across the valley is the same peak we could see from Artenara, but this is the other side of it. It’s Roque Bentayga.
![Gran Canaria - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Gran-Canaria-The-Hall-of-Einar-2989-725x408.jpg)
I need to walk up to the car along a track. Naturally I take my camera with telephoto lens. It’s then that I see a Grey Shrike. It looks just like the Great Grey Shrike I saw on Dartmoor:
![Grey Shrike - Gran Canaria - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Gran-Canaria-The-Hall-of-Einar-4-725x725.jpg)
Except on Dartmoor it wasn’t on a Prickly Pear.
It’s an incredibly exciting bird to find just as we’ve arrived.
I use all the field skills I learned with the Dartmoor one and get as close as I can without disturbing it.
![Grey Shrike - Gran Canaria - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Gran-Canaria-The-Hall-of-Einar-2966-725x483.jpg)
Oh Wow! Look at the beak! That’s what I call a hooked beak. Shrikes are often referred to as Butcher Birds from their habit of keeping a larder of dead prey items impaled on spikes.
![Grey Shrike - Gran Canaria - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Gran-Canaria-The-Hall-of-Einar-2963-2-725x725.jpg)
It looks just like a Great Grey Shrike. I check. It’s a Southern Grey Shrike. No it isn’t it’s a race of the African Desert Shrike. No it isn’t…
![Grey Shrike - Gran Canaria - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Gran-Canaria-The-Hall-of-Einar-2971-725x725.jpg)
Until someone can tell me they’ve done the DNA and identified the exact origin of these Grey Shrikes, this one’s going to remain just a Grey Shrike, no matter how great it is.
It flies and I turn to find the sun is setting with a line of blood red across the rocks. What a stunning end to the day.
![Gran Canaria - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Gran-Canaria-The-Hall-of-Einar-2990-725x408.jpg)
I’m beginning to like it here. It’s time to go back to the cave.
More from Gran Canaria
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