A facebook message yesterday, Thursday 4th June from Val Roebuck Dootson mentioned seeing a starling in her garden that was 50/50 dark brown and PINK! She later added she'd looked up images and was sure it was a Rosy Starling.
Some detective work soon revealed her garden was in Cudworth and on Barnsley Road.
Surprisingly only two birders were walking the Cudworth streets that afternoon (maybe everyone else has a crystal ball), but after four hours with just Common Starlings and then a heavy shower they called it a day.
I was back again very early this morning (in rain again), hoping to have a good look around before people left their beds. After a hour and half I'd walked most of the likely areas that held Starlings yesterday, headed onto Saville Street and saw the large berry (cherry apparantly) tree (which I'd missed yesterday). And there were Starlings feeding in it. And after only about a minute looking, out popped the Rose-coloured Starling, Rosy Starling, Rosy Pastor, call it whatever you want, in all it's brilliance.
And it's now been photographed thousands of times, made lots of folks happy and it's the first ever record for the Barnsley area.
The nearest breeding grounds are around Romania and the Black Sea with the range stretching eastwards from there. It is well known as a nomadic species with an irruptive lifestyle and already this summer the signs were good with thousands travelling westwards across Europe and the vanguard hitting the UK in the last week or so. Even so, it was early for one arriving in Cudworth, so congratulations to Val for alerting us to it's presence. And there's still plenty of time to find more......
I'm sure the blog will soon be awash with cracking photos to drool over.
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