Drop everything and twitch for a UK first!! – a Western Reef Heron in Gwynedd on the Northwest Welsh coast
A few days ago I was bemoaning the lack of good rare birds this spring to my good birding mate Nick . Notwithstanding the Cornish Lesser Kestrel at the start of May, nothing has troubled my UK list or made me jump out of the window and into my car. Well, of course, if you are a UK birder you will certainly know what happened mid-morning on Saturday. A Western Reef Heron, sometimes called a Western Reef Egret, was found at a place called Foryd Bay on the Welsh coast. Just to add to the excitement it was, arguably, the more attractive dark morph. This was going to be a major twitch for what was immediately a very strong candidate for UK bird of the year. The Western Reef-Heron is common across coastal Africa and parts of southwest Asia and is an increasing vagrant to southern Europe. It has hence been “on the cards” as a potential UK vagrant for some time. All other plans for Saturday were immediately banished. My poor long suffering wif...