Beaky blinder puts twitchers in a spin
BIRD lovers were bowled over to see this rare hoopoe picking worms off a cricket field.
Photographer Danny Virr, 29, captured the moment it flicked a grub into its mouth after waiting two and a half hours for the shot.
Mr Virr had been too busy working as a UPS loader to snap the bird in the first days of rumoured sightings in Leeds.
He said: “I left it until Friday and my luck was in. To know this bird was last seen in Leeds 40 years ago and how rare it is in the UK, you can understand my excitement.”
The colourful, crested birds are found in Africa and southern Europe but only 100 or so pass through the UK every year, says the RSPB.