News
Sandhill crane pulls the crowds
23/09/2009 16:28:00
A BIRD which has not been seen in the UK in 18 years has been spotted in South Ronaldsay and could result in hundreds if not thousands of twitchers flocking to Orkney to confirm a sighting of it.
A sandhill crane has been spotted on Liddle Loch, near Burwick in South Ronaldsay, and feeding on a stubble field nearby.
RSPB Orkney officer Eric Meek said that it is only the third confirmed
sighting of the bird in the UK. The first was in Fair Isle in 1981 the
second was in Shetland in 1991.
He said that if the bird chooses to stay over the weekend, thousands of birdwatchers could arrive in Orkney. Around 100 keen twitchers have already arrived in Orkney today.
South Ronaldsay based birdwatcher Paul Higson received a phone call
from a friend alerting him to the bird, travelled down to Liddle and
managed to get a few photographs of the crane.
Paul explained that he has seen the sandhill crane in China and America before, but never in the UK.
He said that the crane normally lives in the plains of North America
and migrates south in the winter, and thinks that the Orkney crane must
have been blown across the Atlantic by westerly winds from the tail end
of a recent hurricane.