Bird watchers were chirping with excitement when a rare red-flanked bluetail was spotted in Marshfield.

Blogger Sherston Wildlife reported over 2,500 twitchers flocking to see the bird over the past seven weeks in a valley between Tormarton and Marshfield.

The red-flanked bluetail is described in the Collins guide as a three-star rarity.

Marshfield resident John Barnett posted on www.rarebirdalert.co.uk after seeing one in the Shire Valley last month, when it could more normally be expected to be in the warmer climate of Southeast Asia.

He originally mistook it for a robin.

He said: “I thought, oh well, red-flanked, all it needs is a blue tail now, when it turned around and there was the blue tail! I nearly collapsed, my heart started racing, and I thought, it really is one!”