Scarlet tanager: Crowds flock to Halifax to spot rare bird

Another birdwatcher, Matt O’Sullivan, said the scarlet tanager’s appearance was the first recorded on the UK mainland, as other sightings had been on “remote” islands.

He added: “This bird will have been born late spring or early summer in the eastern United States or Canada and has somehow found its way all the way to West Yorkshire. Most likely it was carried across the Atlantic by a low pressure system and has been here ever since. Typically this species winters in Central America, migrating across the Gulf of Mexico or through Florida.

“There have only been 13 previous records of this species in the UK and Ireland but they have almost always been on remote islands so this is essentially the first bird that everyday folk can go and see – hence the massive crowd.”

Website Bird Guides said on X, external that the sighting was believed to be the first in Yorkshire.

“Never before seen in Yorkshire, the first-winter male scarlet tanager is just the eighth British record and the first since 2014,” it said.

According to Cornell University’s All about Birds website, the male breeding birds have a bright red body and black wings and tails, while females and juvenile birds have a yellowish-green body.

It is usually the duller yellowish birds which are spotted in the UK, having been swept off course by storms as they migrate south in the autumn, the website said.

One man among the throng had travelled a little less far than other enthusiasts – he had journeyed from a few hundred metres away in the village.

The temporary twitcher had been walking his dog when he spotted the crowds and decided to join them, declaring that he would be “chuffed to bits” to see the American visitor.

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