20160802 (1)_Western_Purple_Swamphen
First record for Britain.... there have been some rejected but this bird at Minsmere RSPB, Suffolk, looks like the real deal. It is the right race, at a suitable time for dispersal, in the right habitat and, crucially, at the same time as a second dispersing bird has turned up at Morbihan, Brittany. This is surely a non-coincidence and it would seem extraordinarily unlikely that two birds should have escaped simultaneously and fled in opposite directions. Indeed the likelihood of genuine vagrancy from Iberia, with one bird moving further down the same bearing than the other, appears vastly greater. The bird itself is comfortably settled on a pool in the huge Minsmere reedbed (fortunately one that can be easily watched!) ripping reed stems and roots to shreds while watched by delighted twitchers.
20160802 (1)_Western_Purple_Swamphen
First record for Britain.... there have been some rejected but this bird at Minsmere RSPB, Suffolk, looks like the real deal. It is the right race, at a suitable time for dispersal, in the right habitat and, crucially, at the same time as a second dispersing bird has turned up at Morbihan, Brittany. This is surely a non-coincidence and it would seem extraordinarily unlikely that two birds should have escaped simultaneously and fled in opposite directions. Indeed the likelihood of genuine vagrancy from Iberia, with one bird moving further down the same bearing than the other, appears vastly greater. The bird itself is comfortably settled on a pool in the huge Minsmere reedbed (fortunately one that can be easily watched!) ripping reed stems and roots to shreds while watched by delighted twitchers.