This afternoon a non-birder sent a photo of a bird taken at her farm in eastern Iceland today. Jaws dropped when birders in Reykjavík saw the picture
http://www.hi.is/~yannk/photos04.html
It is a Varied Thrush, and is of course the first record for Iceland and the second for the WP following a bird in Britain which many of you undoubtedly saw. When was this exactly??
Quite what this bird is doing here I don't know but if it can reach Britain then why not? We've had several days of bitterly cold northerlies, so perhaps it came straight over via Arctic Canada!
It was seen on a remote farm called Unaós in eastern Iceland, as far away from Reykjavík as you can get (9 hours' drive) and I can't get there due to work commitments but at least four people have flown there to look for it tonight.
I was actually at this farm exactly a month ago and photos of the area can be seen here.
http://www.hi.is/~yannk/austurferd04.html
The 10th photo down, marked 17:42 shows the farm. The surrounding area by the way (photo 11), marked 17:52 is one of the richest birding areas in Iceland in summer, with incredible numbers of Arctic Skua, Red-necked Phalarope, Red-throated Diver and Whimbrel. You'll even find a photo of little me in this collection!
E
and yours has colour :)
Hi Edward
I've seen these in the Seattle area. They are the most stunning birds, aren't they? The Cornwall Varied Thrush was in November 1982 (and before my time), but, as you probably know it wasn't in colour - it was one of those rare grey and white variants.