Hundreds of birdwatchers queue to see rare Oriental Turtle Dove

small woeld.com ^ | February 15th 2011 | staff reporter

[Daffynition]

Hundreds of birdwatchers queued outside a suburban house today to catch a glimpse of a rare bird in the back garden – after paying a £5 fee imposed by the canny homeowner.

More than 500 twitchers descended on the doorstep of amateur ornithologist Steve Akers, 56, from 6.30am after he spotted the Oriental Turtle Dove feeding in his garden.

The bird – normally found in Russia and Siberia – has only been spotted twice before in Britain and news of the discovery spread like wildfire through the birdwatching world on Monday afternoon.

By yesterday morning a queue of ornithologists stretched for hundreds of yards along Mr Akers’ road in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

The father-of-two drafted in two ‘bouncers’ from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) to control the crowd.

[Vinnie]

Hope my son hasn’t heard about this. He’ll be booking a flight. :)

[Daffynition]

Tell him to hurry...other neighborly critters are queuing up.

[Daffynition]

Too late! You waited too long. ;9

[Daffynition]

It could get ugly if the twitchers get out numbered.

[mosesdapoet]

Thanks for the pic. That spotted gull is very distinguisable and quite different from the inland variety