mythical no more but still a corker

for 30 years most of us could only dream of a glimpse of a Red-flanked Bluetail in an East coast October fall; having read the accounts of all of the five records pre-1975 we were given some little hope by two singles in the classic years of 1975 and 1976 but neither were twitchable; the 1978 Lincolnshire bird was seen while I was finding an Arctic Warbler just 10 miles away but it was to be another 15 years before the confiding Dorset bird allowed most of the modern day birders to see this gem in the UK; a trip to Yarmouth the following year and two obliging Lincolnshire birds in 1999 and 2002 meant that I had seen more Bluetails than Cirl Buntings in the UK; today's Flamborough foray was a nice refresher on this delightful little gem which has however, rather spoilt its mythical status in recent years with 21 recorded since 1997 no doubt a sign of its continuing westward spread into Finland and northern Sweden