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!
