Red-Flanked Bluetail The Colins Bird guide lists the charismatic Red-flanked Blue Tail as a two star rarity which equates to one or UK sightings in a normal year. Historically it was a rare summer visitor in North-eastern Europe but this year has seen record numbers in Finland, giving us hope that we might get a few more vagrants than usual this autumn on route to their south-eastern Asian wintering grounds. With the much sort after, at least by birders, combination of easterly winds and short sharp showers last week we were certainly not disappointed with, incredibly, somewhere in the region of forty birds found on the English east coast. The Red-flanked Bluetail was high up on the list of UK birds I wanted to see and I needed no further encouragement whatsoever to get up at silly o’ clock last Wednesday and head for the east coast. The question was what destination to choose from the three obvious options, Yorkshire, Norfolk or Kent? In the end I opted for Kent as there had been