Rare sighting of American visitor - the red-winged blackbird

North Ronaldsay is the northernmost island of the Orkney archipelago. 

This 5km-long stretch of windswept terrain is famous for a breed of sheep which subsist almost entirely on seaweed. In the days when kelp was harvested, a dry-stone wall around the island’s perimeter kept the sheep in from the shoreline. Nowadays it keeps them out; the animals feed at low tide and ruminate when the seaweed is covered. Bones of the legendary great auk, a species which became extinct in 1844, were found at a Neolithic site on North Ronaldsay. A bird observatory, the Scottish equivalent of the one at Cape Clear, was set up there in 1987.

There’s an airstrip and a ferry service from Orkney but few outsiders visit the island. It was a different story, however, on the May bank holiday weekend. The observatory’s chief assistant warden, Simon Davies, had spotted a streaky-brown bird, slightly larger than a starling. The visitor was identified as an American red-winged blackbird, a species not recorded previously in Europe. Media reports sent twitchers into a tizzy; enthusiasts from all over the UK and elsewhere headed for North Ronaldsay. Some even chartered planes to get there.