One evening in November 1958, a bird resembling a moorhen was found in a gutter on St Mary’s, in the Isles of Scilly. Exhausted and underweight, it died two days later.
This strange bird was eventually identified as an American purple gallinule, the first found alive in Britain. Since then, just two dozen individuals have been discovered on this side of the Atlantic; more often than not found dead or dying.
Until this autumn, at least. On 16 November, two men on a building site on the Somerset coast noticed a strange-looking bird with purplish plumage and huge feet walking around the garden in which they were working.
Intrigued by its tameness, they shared their sandwiches with the bird, and took a video and still photographs, which they shared online. This turned out to be only the fourth record – and the first in a healthy state – of an American purple gallinule in the UK. Sadly for the twitching community, it was never seen again.
Although gallinules look as if they could hardly fly further than the nearest pond, they are among the world’s most spectacular long-distance vagrants.
This autumn, a succession of westerly gales has brought several North American vagrants to our shores, including Blackburnian and myrtle warblers on the Isles of Scilly. The gallinule probably crossed the Atlantic on the tailwinds of ex-hurricane Martin earlier in the month.
