Birdwatchers flock to lighthouse to see rare birds

By Athena Stavrou via SWNS

Twitchers have flocked to see a rare brown booby on a lighthouse - days after a rare red booby was spotted there.

Birdwatchers have descended on the Cornish coast to see the two different foreign sea birds.

Earlier this month a "red-footed booby" was seen on the isolated Bishop Rock Lighthouse 6.5km (4 miles) west of Scilly off Cornwall, England.

The species had only been spotted once before in UK waters.

But remarkably the bird has been joined over the weekend by a "brown booby," a similarly rare bird to spot in Britain.

Both birds are native to tropical islands in the Pacific oceans and rarely travel outside warm water zones.

Dick Filby, of Rare Bird Alert, said: "It's extraordinary that they're both there at the same time.

''The birds are of the same family but a different species.

"To have two tropical birds, that rarely travel further than the Caribbean to be in the same place on the south west coast of England is exciting.

"They're a long way from home. The red-footed booby has only been identified once in Britain and the brown booby has only been seen five or six times."

The red-footed booby was spotted by a birdwatcher on patrol around the isolated Bishop Rock Lighthouse on Aug. 7.

Since then, over 400 birdwatchers have dropped everything to see the bird, which appears to be resting before a return journey south.

On Aug. 28, keen birdwatchers spotted the second bird join it's counterpart on the foot of the lighthouse.

Dick added: "They've almost certainly been displaced because of the changing conditions of the climate and the sea temperature.

"They've wound up in potentially the warmest part of the British Isles because that's where they're finding food.

"I think it's highly likely we'll get more and more birds displaced in this way. It's exciting on the one hand but also worrying.

"If they're here when they should be somewhere else it's concerning. Climate change is happening so quickly so it's hard to know how it will all pan out."