Hundreds of twitchers flock to UK cul-de-sac to catch a glimpse of ultra-rare chicken

Hundreds of twitches flocked to a cul-de-sac to catch a glimpse of an ultra-rare bird that unexpectedly blew in from America.

Around 300 bird watchers crowded into the road in Shelf, West Yorkshire where the scarlet tanager was first spotted on a washing line earlier this week.

It is thought the small bird arrived in Britain after being blown off course by strong winds from a hurricane in North America.

And some of the assembled twitchers had travelled hundreds of miles to see the unusual species, which was last glimpsed in the UK back in 2014.

Dave Stone, 75, said he had travelled 280 miles from his home in Exeter to the road, Bridle Dene, in West Yorks in the early hours of Tuesday morning with three pals.

The retired foundry moulder said: “We left Exeter in Devon at 2am. We got up here at first light. It’s near enough the furthest I’ve travelled [to see a rare species].

“I’ll wait until the light goes to see it and then we’ll go back again. I’m retired. Three of us came up in one car.

Speaking about his hobby, he said: “I’ve been doing this since 1985. If I get this bird, it will be my 500th. There have been quite a few rare ones.

“It’s been seen this morning, and it would be a new bird for me.”

Joe Eckersley, 28, travelled around 40 minutes from his home in Leeds to see the rare bird on Monday morning.

He said he usually travels up to two hours to see birds after becoming interested in ‘twitching’ when he was 10 years old.

So he was delighted when he discovered the extremely rare bird was a few miles down the road.

Joe said: “I never thought I’d see a scarlet tanager in the UK, let alone in Yorkshire.

“It should be making its way down to Central or South America from the North East Coast of America or southern Canada at the moment.

“It’s probably been here since October. I think the most likely thing that’s happened is it will have been blown off course by a hurricane.

“When you’re flying and you only weigh a couple of grams, it is easy to be blown off course by hurricane-force winds.”

Joe said the last sighting of a scarlet tanager was on Barra in the Outer Hebrides in 2014, but this is the first time the bird has been seen in mainland UK since a brief appearance in Cornwall in the 1980s.

He said scores of people had made their way to the quiet road in West Yorkshire to try and catch a glimpse of the rare visitor.

Joe went on: “When I was there, there were about 60 or 70 people waiting around.

“We waited around an hour before it showed, and it was probably there for six or seven minutes.

“We left because we weren’t going to get a better view of it, but a friend who is there has sent me a picture and it looks like the number of people has doubled. There’s at least 100 people there.”

Website Bird Guides said the sighting was just the eighth in British history.

Writing on X, they said: “Never before seen in Yorkshire, the first-winter male Scarlet Tanager is just the eighth British record and the first since 2014.”

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