Bird species seen just the once in your yard/garden. (1 Viewer)

[pianoman]

Yellow Wagtail and Northern Wheatear for me. Both at the same time during an amazing 15-minute "fall" of migrants in my garden one morning about 10 years ago. It has never been repeated, though I keep waiting in hope.

 

[KenM]

Yellow Wagtail and Northern Wheatear for me. Both at the same time during an amazing 15-minute "fall" of migrants in my garden one morning about 10 years ago. It has never been repeated, though I keep waiting in hope.

Are you inland pianoman: ?

 

[Jonno52]

Ring Ouzel, seen and photographed from the bedroom window of my flat in Lambeth on 24 October 2019. It was sheer luck I happened to be looking out there during the few minutes the bird was present (and had the camera to hand to subsequently convince sceptics that it wasn't a Blackbird). Some pics posted in the Gallery and on Flickr, eg this. They do occasionally stop off in gardens on their way to the coast at that time of year, but I was gobsmacked.

 

[lgonz1008]

Lost male Indigo Bunting on my first year of birding in July, the bird is a common migrant and rare winter resident, but they are almost never seen in summer.

 

[pianoman]

Are you inland pianoman: ?

No, about 100 metres from the sea Ken. But passage migrants don't tend to land in my garden because it is at an inlet rather than a promontary.

 

[Andy Adcock]

Would that be Blighty or Russia Andy?

Cheers

Blighty Ken.

 

[Seanbirds]

Some of mine have been:

Wilson’s Warbler
Lesser Yellowlegs
Blue-headed Vireo
Cattle Egret
Prairie Falcon

 

[Rob Hunt]

Rose-coloured Starling and Great Spotted Woodpecker. I live right on the coast with no real woodland within a mile.

 

[Andy Adcock]

Ring Ouzel, seen and photographed from the bedroom window of my flat in Lambeth on 24 October 2019. It was sheer luck I happened to be looking out there during the few minutes the bird was present (and had the camera to hand to subsequently convince sceptics that it wasn't a Blackbird). Some pics posted in the Gallery and on Flickr, eg this. They do occasionally stop off in gardens on their way to the coast at that time of year, but I was gobsmacked.

Indeed, I twitched one in a City centre park in Nottingham some years ago.

 

[KenM]

Indeed, I twitched one in a City centre park in Nottingham some years ago.

I once had a Male Ring Ouzel in Lincoln’s Inn (Park, behind Holborn Tube Station on the grass area, with the general public walking around the perimeter on the metalled path during early May, looked most incongruous!, not at all shy and retiring like most I’ve seen.

Cheers

 

[KenM]

Rose-coloured Starling and Great Spotted Woodpecker. I live right on the coast with no real woodland within a mile.

Presume you have a garden with trees and shrubs Rob?

Cheers

 

[KC Foggin]

Swallow-tailed Kite.

 

[kb57]

Added willow tit unequivocally to my garden list on 10 March (previously only in my neighbours / flying over), when one perched on my hedge briefly.

 

[MrBJones]

Couple years ago I saw a Northern Flicker in our Dallas-area back yard. Didn't even know what it was until I found it in Sibley's afterward.

 

[RecoveringScot]

None where I live now, but when I lived on Anglesey (edge of a village) I had Raven in the back garden, eating something, once a Peregrine sitting on the back wall, and on another occasion I had a very unusual 'Rock Partridge'. which I assumed had been released for shooting somewhere nearby. Barn Owls did sit on the walls occasionally so more than once. My best birds round the house though were just outside of the house range (Redstart in the meadow next to my garden and a completely unexpected Green Sandpiper in February in a roadside run-off ditch leading up to the main road.

 

[Warixenjalka]

I have seen just once in garden 8 species. I leave off species that I have seen in garden once but also if I have seen them from my house/garden on neighbors tree or roof on other time. Same thing about flyovers and those birds that I have only heard, cos I can't be sure where they exactly were. I have never put up how I've seen the bird's in my garden, but I think I remember them pretty well. For some reason, more special species are better remembered.

2014 Rook (Not sure if that individual went to the garden for a couple of consecutive days, but I took it into this play now)
2016 Bluethroat (I remember this well. On sunny Spring day I was resting in the garden in a hammock when, with corner of my eye I noticed someone landing next to me. I turned my head and just had time to see enough of it for identification, when the bird scared me and flew away.)
2016 Willow Tit (I wonder do I ever again see this rarer and rarer species in my garden)
2017 Goldcrest (I thought I had seen this at least a couple of times, but after checking the old notes, I could only find one entry in my garden)
2018 White-winged Crossbill (The tree where these were grows on neighbors side, but the branches extend to our yard side as well. These were on site about one week. Whether this should be rejected, even though the birds were very likely the same individuals at all times?)
2019 Whitethroat (Lesser Wt is about annual in Garden, but this one is much rarer. Even they aren't so rare about 2 km from our house.)
2020 White-backed Woodpecker (It was a glorious day! 😁)
2020 Wood Warbler (At last. Couple of pairs nesting some where near <1 km every summer.)

 

[Andy Lakin]

For me Lesser Whitethroat about six feet away while washing up. Best birds from garden Sandwich Tern, Woodcock and Rough Legged Buzzard,

 

[KC Foggin]

Swallow-tailed Kite

 

[Swindon Addick]

Willow warbler, in April last year. Having been here 17 years I've seen a few species very few times, but that's the only one literally just once actually landed.

Stretching the rules a bit, I've had red kite fly over the house once, and over many years of watching birds perhaps once a month at my mum's place I've seen precisely one sparrowhawk sat on a fence there (but she's seen several).

 

[MikeInPA]

Living in a woodland I was surprised to have a crippling male Bobolink one year. To think I stood up at the airport on St Mary's for hours and hours to see an immature Bobolink pop up for 2 seconds in that walled area just by the road near the terminal.