6 Jun 2011 - White-throated Robin, Cleveland

It was 08.35 and I'd been in work for about 3 minutes when the Mega Alert started warbling away on my pager. The bird that had earlier been reported as a Red-flanked Bluetail in Cleveland had been re-identified as Britain's second ever White-throated Robin. I was on the road by 09.00 and arrived at Hartlepool Headland at 2pm. The bird had flown off, but only to the nearby Doctor's garden and after a rather nervy half-hour wait it finally flew back out onto the bowling green where it hopped around both on the road outside and on the grassy areas inside the bowling green perimeter. The bird put in another appearance before going missing for a number of hours. It was found in Doctor's garden and became quite a media celebrity during its stay. The bird stayed for the next 5 days, but thankfully departed on the Friday night (there's nothing worse than taking a day off to twitch a bird only for it to stay over the following weekend!)