Exporting to the USA

Don't get excited, this is an OLD photo. I took it back on 18th October 2003, after Mark Love had been kind enough to let us (Bockhill Birders) know that he'd just caught two Pallas's Warblers in South Foreland Valley.

I was surprised to get an e-mail from Peter Thayer of Thayer Birding Software asking if they could use the above picture for their Birds of North America CD-ROM.

I wasn't even aware that one of these little gems had appeared in North America. As usual Google had the answer. One had been found at Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, on 25–26 September 2006 by Paul Lehman and Gary Rosenberg and had been accepted unanimously by the Alaska Checklist Committee. Pallas’s Warbler breeds in eastern Asia and winters south to Indochina. It is a rare but regular migrant to Japan and northern Thailand and it often strays to Europe. It used to be a "Mega" rarity in the UK but over the last 30 years it has became more frequent and there are now several records for St Margaret's, both in South Foreland Valley and Bockhill and once there was one in Chapel Lane, before I moved here. I'm very much looking forward to the copy of the CD-Rom I will get for the use of the photo.

Today was another very dull day, made even duller by the fact that I spent most of the day waiting for the assessor from my insurance company, coming to look at the damage to my car. Who would have thought that two doors and a dented wing would make an eight year old car an economic write off? We've definitely become a disposable society.