And a second........
I am just passing a notes along from our Swift homepage.......Hurricanes could
have more newsworthy data than the ABC tells us about.
Happy birding
Mike
Dr Mike Tarburton
Dean: School of Science and Technology
Pacific Adventist University
PMB, Boroko
Papua New Guinea
> ----------
> From: on behalf of knightl
> Sent: 7 September 2004 16:54
> To: Birding Aus
> Subject: [BIRDING-AUS] On the subject of out of the way vagrants - a
> European twitching first
>
> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=559025
>
> Twitchers flock to the Hebrides for first glimpse of US swallow for
> first time
>
> By Brian Unwin
> 07 September 2004
>
> It's twitch time again. Hundreds and possibly thousands of birdwatchers
> were on their way to the remotest corner of Britain yesterday after the
> discovery of a type of bird not previously recorded in Britain or
> Europe.
>
> Twitchers flocked to the Outer Hebrides to see a purple martin, an
> American swallow never before seen on this side of the North Atlantic,
> which turned up at the Hebrides' extreme northern tip - the lighthouse
> at the Butt of Lewis.
>
> The bird, an immature, is believed to have been blown off course across
> the Atlantic - probably by the recent series of hurricanes - while
> migrating from eastern Canada or the USA to spend the winter in Brazil.
>
> The martin was spotted on Sunday afternoon, and by yesterday morning
> the first twitchers were arriving on the island of Lewis by plane: all
> scheduled flights into Stornoway airport were full, and other birders
> arrived on chartered light aircraft. By midday, all hire cars had gone
> and the ferry company Caledonian MacBrayne was said to have been
> "inundated" with requests for tickets on its ferry services to Lewis
> from Uig in Skye and Ullapool on the mainland.
>
> One of the first to reach the lighthouse was Steve Gantlett, editor of
> the magazine Birding World and co-author of Rare Birds in Britain and
> Ireland, who travelled from his home at Cley, north Norfolk.
>
> He said: "As a long-distance migrant nesting in eastern North America,
> purple martin has always been a species we hoped might find its way to
> Europe, but it's still remarkable that one has finally made it. The
> hurricanes on the American side must have caused much disruption to
> autumn migration."
>
> The Lewis bird is only a few months old, and it has almost certainly
> come from someone's back garden in America as a growing shortage of
> natural sites means the vast majority rely on people to provide nest
> boxes. As the species is a communal breeder, many of the million-plus
> Americans who provide accommodation erect what are known as "purple
> martin condos" - providing space for up to 24 pairs. There are two
> American organisations devoted to the species, the Purple Martin
> Conservation Association, and the Purple Martin Society.
>
> Thrush-sized, and much larger than other swallow family members
> recorded in Europe and America, the Lewis bird puzzled the trio of
> naturalists - Mark Wetheril, Torcuil Grant and Shaun Coyle - who were
> the first to spot it. But when they phoned Martin Scott, a Royal
> Society for the Protection of Birds official based in the Outer
> Hebrides, and described it, he realised it was a purple martin, which
> he had seen before in the US. "It took me 10 minutes to reach the
> lighthouse and I was delighted to see that's exactly what it was - and
> in a state of shock over the fact I was looking at a species totally
> new to Europe," Mr Scott said.
>
> At present there are 567 species of birds officially accepted by the
> British Ornithologists' Union as having been seen in Britain. Several
> other records of "firsts" are awaiting ratification. They include a
> taiga flycatcher from Siberia and a black lark from central Asia.>
>
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