Northern Parula.

Northern Parula. Tiree, Inner Hebrides Sept 2010. SP.

On 25 September a Northern Parula was found on Tiree, Inner Hebrides, this bird created some interest for me for a few reasons. The Northern Parula (NP) breeds in the eastern half of N.America, and winters from Mexico south to Nicaragua, and from southern Florida south through the West Indies.

The first record of NP in Britain was as recent as 44 years ago on Tresco, Isles of Scilly in October 1966 when a man and his wife told a visitor at the same hotel they were staying in of a mystery bird they had seen earlier in the day feeding with Goldcrests, rushing off to the location described to him he eventually caught a glimpse of the bird which instantly solved the mystery and he claimed the bird to be a NP. However, there had been an earlier record of the species than this one, it was of a bird seen and caught on board a ship in September 1962, but this individual died after the ship had docked at Southhampton in Hampshire. 

The NP is unmistakable amongst the American Wood-Warblers and is often regarded as the prettiest of them all, small and multicoloured. This individual is unusual in that most - if not all - previous vagrants to the UK have been in S.W.England and S.Ireland, though one was found dying in Wigan, Lancashire in November 1982.   

You can read about this bird, when, where, and how in the finders article on the RBA website. 

On a personal level....

Stonechat. David Cookson.

I never tire of seeing excellent photographs of any subject in particular those of birds, and certainly would never do of the Stonechat. I'm desperately overdue visiting many upland location favourites of mine to keep tabs on the species, that said, the prospects of birding anywhere for me are not looking good at the moment but I'm doing my best to change that situation. Thanks for the photograph DC, looking forward to seeing you sometime again soon. Also thanks to SP for the NP photograph.