Twitter storm blows up over reports of birders deliberately flushing rare lanceolated warbler in Shetlands

                

 CONTROVERSY has blown up over a mass twitch on Shetland.

Scores of birders have this week headed to Wester Quarff on the mainland after reports of  sightings of a lanceolated warbler  - a vagrant from eastern Europe, possibly Russia.

There is a convention that the welfare of the bird should always come first - and, under no circumstances, should it be flushed in order to provide a photograph or a view.

But the 'law' seems to have been ignored on this occasion, with a video briefly appearing on social media of the bird deliberately being flushed from grass on a roadside.

The incident has prompted other birders to take to Twitter to vent their disgust, and at least one has reported the incident to Shetland police as a possible wildlife crime.

It is not known how much of the outrage is genuine and how much is 'sour grapes' self-righteousness from birders not fortunate enough to have seen the bird. 

Since the rumpus blew up, another Tweet has been posted to the effect that the rare warbler was unlikely to have been put out by the human attention.