[sharktrager]

Birdwatchers from all over Britain who gathered in Grimsby to catch sight of a rare American robin were horrified to see her eaten by a passing sparrowhawk.
They were still setting up their cameras when the predator swooped down from a row of drab factories and warehouses on an industrial estate.

The young bird, from the southern US, "didn't really live to enjoy her moment of fame," a twitcher told the Guardian.

The robin's vivid red breast made her an obvious candidate for a lunch date.

"It was a terrible moment," Graham Appleton, of the British Trust for Ornithology, which had spread news of the bird's arrival, told the newspaper.

Long-distance travels

But the trust's migration watch organiser Dawn Balmer was more philosophical.

"Most of these rare visitors eventually succumb anyway to cold weather or a lack of food, if not predation," she told the paper.

The robin, whose scientific name Turdus migratorius derives from its long-distance travels within America was probably blown across the Atlantic after being "caught up in a jetstream", Mr Appleton added.

A member of the thrush family, with oily-black wings and tail, American robin are as big as British blackbirds.

AMERICAN ROBIN
Scientific name: Turdus migratorius
Average size: 21.5 cm
Lives: Southern, central and eastern US
Eats: Insects, fruit, worms

[Nebullis]

I can't imagine that the American Robin would not survive there, it's the perfect sort of habitat for them. I would worry that it would compete with the European blackbird. The blackbird is very similar in behavior, feeding and nesting patterns, even its song is similar, except for a little tweet-tweet at the end.