A Brit with American tastes

For British bird-watchers, it was a sight as rare as a happily wedded royal couple: the appearance of a wayward American robin.

The exotic bird wound up making an unscheduled landing in Grimsby, in southern England.

Birders had descended on the scene last week from around the nation to behold the specimen with the Beefeater’s breast.

But the robin had another admirer, a sparrow hawk, which zoomed in and made it dinner to go.

Brit unflappability took a hit, as aghast “twitchers,” as fanatic birders are known locally, watched the strike in their viewfinders and scopes.

“Sparrow hawks primarily eat birds they catch by ambush,” says Kimball Garrett, ornithologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.

“So taking a bird even the size of a robin wouldn’t be that unusual.”

It was frightfully bad form, though, to eat the guest of honor.

As one twitcher told the Guardian, the visitor “didn’t really live to enjoy her moment of fame.”

-- Joe Robinson