American Bird, Never Seen Before in Britain, Photographed.
First picture ever taken of a alder flycatcher - a small American bird
- on British shores
It made history after being blown across the Atlantic by the recent gales.
After being discovered at Nanchizel, Cornwall, it was identified as an
alder flycatcher, scientific name Empidonax altnorum, a species not
previously recorded in Britain or anywhere else in Europe.
The slim sparrow-sized bird was not the most eye-catching off-course
feathered American to have reached Britain, having rather drab,
grey-brown upperparts with two white bars on each wing, and a dull
creamy-buff underside.
Canadian woodlands north to Arctic regions make up the greater part of
this species' breeding range.
In the USA it nests in the north-east and Great Lakes regions and also
in Alaska.
The only previous European record of a bird of the Empidonax genus of
the tyrant flycatcher family was an Acadian flycatcher Empidonax
virescens that was recorded in Iceland in November 1967.
Although the Cornwall bird is the first Empidonax record for Britain,
it is not the first tyrant flycatcher.
An eastern phoebe - of the genus Sayornis - was recorded on the island
of Lundy, Devon, in April, 1987.
Daily Telegraph: Late October 2008
