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.
