European record found in Shetland
A European record has been set at an undisclosed location on the Shetland Mainland - with the sighting of a bird that is usually found 4,000 miles away.
On Sunday morning, local birder Paul Harvey received a text which asked: “What’s this”, followed by a photograph of what turned out to be a great crested flycatcher.
The sighting makes it the first record for both the UK and wider Western Palearctic - a region covering Europe, the Middle East, and north Africa.
It later transpired the bird had been photographed a few days earlier and was no longer present in the area.
However, images taken by Hazel Ulstad clearly identified the species from its “broad white edges to the tertials, extent of yellow on the underparts and pale base to the bill”.
Ms Ulstad had gone down to see the bird for herself after a friend had told her it was in their garden.
“I received a message from a friend who saw it in the garden,” she told this newspaper.
“They realised it was something unusual and asked me if I would come and try to get a photo of it and we would try and figure what it was, and the rest is history.”
Great crested flycatchers come from eastern and central North America and breed across the eastern and mid-western United States and south-eastern Canada.
The birds then migrate south for the winter to grounds in southern Mexico, Central America, and northern South America.
The species is typically between seven to eight inches long, with a wingspan of about 13 inches and weighs between one and 1.4 ounces.
It eats insects and other invertebrates such as butterflies, moths, beetles and grasshoppers.
They are also known to consume small amounts of fruit and berries - particularly during the winter months.