Rare Bird Alert – Issue 39

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This is the UK400 Club Rare Bird Alert for Friday 7th December 2007, issued at 2200 hours, and published in association with Rare Bird Alert Pagers, and utilising valuable information gleaned from the Regional Birdlines, Birdguides, websites, local email groups and individual observers. All Irish rare bird news is by kind courtesy of John Coveney and BINS.

Following on from a Tri-colored Heron Egretta tricolor very recently on Gran Canaria (Canary Islands), the UK has finally yielded its first-ever naturally-arriving GREAT BLUE HERON Ardea herodias. Discovered by Ashley Fisher mid afternoon, the bird – a juvenile – showed well throughout the rest of the available daylight on Lower Moors pools, St Mary’s (Isles of Scilly) until dusk, delighting the 15 or so resident birdwatchers.

The bird had presumably arrived with the weather – a deep Atlantic depression straight in from North America. Although 19 have been recorded on the Azores previously, including eight individuals in autumn 2006, this species still remains a mega vagrant elsewhere in the Western Palearctic. It represents the 435th species recorded in Britain and Ireland in 2007.

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Issue 39