Whilst photographing a Brambling on St. Mary’s Island this morning, news broke of a bird right at the top of most British birder’s wishlist, and one I didn’t think any current Northumberland birder had seen in the county, a White’s Thrush! One had been discovered in trees along Holy Island’s Straight Lonnen by a lucky visiting birder, Peter Ralph.
The earliest I could go was 1pm and not believing the bird would stay around that long, I didn’t build my hopes up. It did stay, all day in fact, keeping faithful to a small copse of trees, sitting motionless for long periods.
I picked up Mike Potts and within little more than an hour we were watching the mythical creature!It moved occasionally from it’s low perches, once or twice affording a glimpse of it’s striking underwing pattern, but always showing the beautiful, cyrptic black scaled plumage.
Local birders kept arriving all afternoon to catch up with this stunning mega- rarity.It was still present when we left and up until dusk.
A.S.Jack