Pretty in pink

Way back in 1998, during my birding Europe by train adventure, I found a juvenile Rose-coloured Starling in Bialowieza.  Whilst a new species for me, a sandy-coloured Starling with a yellow beak is not exactly the same a pink adult and this single sighting has been a bit of a blemish on my lifelist ever since.  Fast forward 26 years and my successful mockingbird twitch of last weekend encouraged me to attempt my second international twitch in less than a week by going for the adult Rose-coloured Starling which has been frequenting a garden on Texel since 7 October.  Within 5 hours of leaving Brussels, I was on the island and headed straight for the garden.  There were plenty of Common Starlings around and two other birders told me it had flown off just before I arrived (typical!), so I started to wait.  There was no sign of it, though, so I started exploring the surrounding area, returning regularly to its regular spot to make sure I wasn't missing out.  After 1.5 hours, I returned to find it sitting on a rooftop and just managed to get a single photo before it disappeared again.

I'd finally seen a pink, Rose-coloured Starling but it was frustratingly brief so I went to my hotel and decided to return again later in the afternoon, when, going by previous sightings, it seemed to be a bit more reliable.  Sure enough, when I returned at 4pm, it was sitting on another roof but this time if stayed put, allowing for more photo's and even coming to feed a couple of times.  I could finally relax and remove the 26 year-old bvd (better view desired) annotation from my lifelist!

Mock star

Last weekend, I paid a visit to the rock star, 1st for Germany Northern Mockingbird which has been attracting admirers from far and wide since it was found in early September.  I've seen plenty of these in the US, including earlier this year, and I wouldn't normally twitch an American vagrant just for my WP list but a friend planted the seed in my head and it seemed a nice area for a walk so I decided to give it a try anyway.  The fields were full of Skylarks which kept getting flushed by a hunting, juvenile Hen Harrier and, within 50 minutes of heading out from the nearest train station, I joined a small crowd watching the bird.  It was in its favourite apple tree, seemed to be healthy and there were plenty of apples left to keep it sustained through the winter.  The only fly in the ointment is that the rather unassuming farmland location is very close to the Rhine, meaning it is very likely to have spent at least part of its transatlantic voyage on a ship, which may well damage its chances of being accepted as a true vagrant.  Either way, it was nice to see this side of the Atlantic, especially when it started stretching for the assembled paparazzi.