The Devon Birdwatching & Preservation Society recently announced the sighting of a rose-coloured starling at Colyton, East Devon and unable to get there at the time I thought I had missed the opportunity to see this vagrant species, writes Stewart Beer
But then the lady owner of a property at Kingsheanton near Prixford alerted the society. Ann, a lifelong birdlover herself recognised the species as it visited her birdfeeders immediately outside the conservatory. 'My father never allowed comics in the house and my childhood leisure-reading was looking at British Birds in watercolour. On a field trip at the age of eight I was able to identify a red-backed shrike for the party of adults - they probably thought me a precocious upstart!', Ann told me.
