The most remarkable sights that I've ever seen came in the early spring when the warblers come back. They come in a seemingly endless variety of colors and pattersn, and they sparkle like jewels in the morning sun.

Oh yes the New World warblers. I will never forget the first one of the group that I saw in the trees around the bottom of Devil's Tower in Wyoming. They do rather put our mainly drab brown and green European warblers to shame. We do have a few more colourful ones but nothing to compare with the little gems that people in the US can see. One species I think rather insultingly, - they refer to as the Common Yellowthroat. Would that such treasures were common over here.

The Common Yellowthroat and many of the other New World warblers do appear on the British list, from a few lost stragglers blown-over the Atlantic. But like the American Robin that was recently killed here by one of our local birds of prey and hit the headlines - they do not tend to survive for too long. You have to be lucky to see these but it is a little sad even if you do manage to see them, to think that these lost individuals will never get back on course.