Shelf twitching Scarlet Tanager

   Sunday night saw quite the development in the Halifax birding year, when a Scarlet Tanager was found in Shelf. At first the news broke as being at an undisclosed location somewhere in West Yorkshire, which was interesting enough on its own, but when it was confirmed as being in Halifax it suddenly gained new importance.

  I arrived on site just after 07:00 but spent the first hour looking in the wrong place, I had clearly missed out some of the information at some point. However, I only missed two brief showings of the Tanager. Once I had found myself in the right place, I joined the crowd that was in place, which was already around 70 people, including many familiar faces from across Yorkshire.

  At around 09:15 the bird finally came out of the garden it had been frequenting and perched in the top of a birch tree in full view. It sat here for a few minutes before flying into another garden where it remained in view. Once again it sat here for a few minutes, including trying to catch a November insect that flew too close. However, it then flew away and landed back out of sight. In the next three hours that I waited it did not show again.

  The bird was a 1^st winter male, meaning it did not have the striking red plumage on individuals that I had seen in Canada, but certainly does its credentials the world of good, as a wild bird as opposed to a fence-jumper. It was a shame that it did not show more consistently but it was nice to catch up with so many birders, some of who I have not seen for years, whilst we were waiting.

  Other birds in a Shelf suburb were obviously limited, but there were two skeins of Pink-footed Geese and two Whooper Swans flew southeast, as well as good numbers of common finches blogging around.

-Scarlet Tanager

Species List:
Shelf: Pink-footed Goose, Whooper Swan, Mallard, Feral Pigeon, Stock Dove, Common Wood Pigeon, Eurasian Collared Dove, Northern Lapwing, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, European Herring Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Great Cormorant, Grey Heron, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Eurasian Jay, Eurasian Magpie, Western Jackdaw, Rook, Carrion Crow, Coal Tit, Eurasian Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Goldcrest, Eurasian Nuthatch, Eurasian Treecreeper, Eurasian Wren, Common Starling, Mistle Thrush, Song Thrush, Redwing, Common Blackbird, Fieldfare, European Robin, Dunnock, Grey Wagtail, Pied Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, Eurasian Chaffinch, Eurasian Bullfinch, European Greenfinch, Redpoll, European Goldfinch, Eurasian Siskin, Scarlet Tanager,