3.09.2004

It's a Bird Eat Bird World

This is priceless:

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.