Rare bird still hanging around Shuswap
A wayward bird seems to have taken a fancy to Salmon Arm.
A fieldfare, spotted only once before in B.C., was still foraging in the company of robins on Tuesday, three days after being sighted in the town’s annual Christmas bird count.
“He’s still around, which is quite remarkable,” said Roger Beardmore, who first photographed the fieldfare.
“It’s good that he’s staying put, because it’s given a lot more people the chance to see him,” Beardmore said.
The bird was viewed by dozens of people on Tuesday near the corner of Krick Road and Kernaghan Road. So, how rare is a fieldfare? Between 1991 and 2015, only one fieldfare was reported in the United States, according to eBird.
The bird breeds in the eastern part of Russia, but migrates toward western Europe. Speculation among birders is the Salmon Arm fieldfare got blown off course by a big storm and found his way down the Alaska-B.C. coast.
A fieldfare was spotted in B.C. only once before, in December 2003, near Pitt Meadows.
Beardmore and his wife Ann were participating in the Christmas bird count when they spotted a bird they didn’t recognize feeding on mountain ash berries. An amateur photographer, Beardmore used a high-quality long lens to get excellent pictures of the bird, which was later confirmed to be a fieldfare.
“Although he’s a long way from home, he seems to be in excellent health,” Beardmore said.