The twitchers have descended in search of a very rare bird (Picture: SWNS)
A small cul-de-sac in West Yorkshire has been taken over by hundreds of bird watchers who have flocked in to catch a glimpse of a rare bird.
The 300 bird watchers have their eyes peeled for the scarlet tanager that was first spotted on a washing line on Monday on Bridle Dean in Shelf, near Halifax.
The small yellow and black bird arrived in Yorkshire after being blown off course by strong winds from a hurricane in North America.
Some twitchers have travelled hundreds of miles just to try and catch a glimpse of the bird.
Dave Stone, 75, is one of them, and has travelled 280 miles from his home in Exeter, Devon.
He 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.
The whole street is rammed as the twitchers try to catch a glimpse of the bird (Picture: SWNS)
‘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.
Speaking yesterday, 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.
‘When you’re flying and you only weigh a couple of grams, it is easy to be blown off course by hurricane-force winds.’
Many have come well prepared with equipment and have travelled from miles away (Picture: SWNS)
The last sighting of a scarlet tanager was on Barra in the Outer Hebrides in 2014.
This is the first time the bird has been seen in mainland UK since a brief appearance in Cornwall in the 1980s.
Talking about how many people there has been on the road, Joe continued: ‘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.
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Source:: Metro
