Sandie

Posted 7/11/09: Well outside our area, but what a pleasure to see an update on the Sandhill Crane story with the pic from France from 11 October. Having been discovered on Orkney on 23 September it departed on 29 September and the account of its interception on the Scottish mainland and tracking down the coast was the most remarkable of birding exploits, see story and map. After it was lost from sight at Brora we all hoped it would be picked up again somewhere further south, but as the days went by it seemed to have given UK birders the slip.

It now transpires that the French sighting followed within a fortnight, but the bird was initially dismissed as an escape, and news only leaked out a couple of wks later - what a pity that it had not been possible to alert all French birders to the possibility of this bird, the language barrier presumably intervening!? Hopefully this is still not the end of the story, but how will the bird cope, and where will it go, if it attempts return migration next spring?

Update for 1 March 2010 - how exciting to see presumably same bird relocated again at the wknd in Spain, just south of the Pyrennes, amongst its common cousins, photo on reservoirbirds. This sighting was later discredited, may relate to an aberrant Common Crane.