Snapped in Gosport on 20th Jan 2005, has been here for a while, lots of local watchers have been searching. I'm not a birdwatcher myself, but as it is only 500 yards from home thought I would post a photo somewhere.
Believe this is a hoopoe, never normally seen until late spring and rare even then.
Sorry about the low-res, but camera only has 3x zoom so these are cropped images.
Enjoy
Sean
It is indeed a hoopoe, and they're not known as Winter visitors, so yes, this is indeed a surprising record.
I'm a bit jealous!
there are occasional records of Hoopoes in winter in the UK, so this is not unprecedented.