Hot on the heels of the Pacific Swift comes another first for Denmark - a White-crowned Black Wheatear! The bird, a second calendar year male, was discovered on 30 June in a private area at Saltbæk Vig, near Kalundborg in north-west Sjælland (about 60-90 minutes from Copenhagen). There is a guided tour this afternoon to see the bird at 1500. However, it is unclear whether the bird can be seen from public areas after a report this morning saying that it was seen on poles at a distance of 12 metres.
Pictures of the bird can be seen here.
It is a very rare bird outside its normal range. As far as I am aware there are only two records from northern Europe - one from the UK (Kessingland, Suffolk, 1-5 June 1982) and one from Germany (9-13 August 1986 in Eichstatt) plus records from southern Europe including single records from Spain, Portugal, Greece, Croatia and Malta and 7 from Turkey.
There is now a video of the bird by Rasmus Strack here.
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2 comments:
Are you going for it Terry? I saw the Suffolk bird when I was doing my degree. I remember it as at Benacre, not Kessingland... It's the only bird on my British list which is not on Ron Johns' (a fact I have taken pleasure in telling him on several occasions...).
Sean
Hi Sean,
There is another tour for it on Saturday morning. I am not sure whether I will go - it's a 2 hr journey each way by public transport and cycle and I have seen them before in Morocco (where they are very common). We'll see.
Seeing the Suffolk bird is a big blocker! Not sure how many people saw that but I know that most of today's big listers haven't seen it in the UK.
The current weather systems look good for vagrants from the south and south-east. Maybe there is a Rose-coloured Starling at Winterton or another Blue-cheeked Bee-eater somewhere in the UK??
Cheers, T
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