Bird thought to have been extinct for almost two centuries spotted swimming off Lincolnshire Coast

  

A study by John Gould of a great auk swallowing a mackerel

A BIRD thought to have been globally instinct for 180 years has turned up today off the Lincolnshire Coast.

It is the first sighting of the great auk in British waters since a single bird was bludgeoned to death on St Kilda in July 1840.

This morning's bird was spotted by a pleasure fisherman Martin Swift, of Heneage Road, Grimsby, who was angling for bass from an anchored boat some 500 metres off Cleethorpes as a murky dawn broke.

"When I first glimpsed the bird, it was a long way away," he says. "It was little bigger than a speck, and I know my birds - I suspected it was probably a gull of some description.

"Then when it swam closer, it looked more like one of those emperor penguins you see on David Attenborough TV shows.

"But then, when it got closer, I twigged.

"I thought I’d got a snap of the bird on my iphone, but unfortunately it dived, so I missed the shot. I'm still fuming!"

Unfortunately, the bird was not seen again by Martin, nor by anyone else since he returned to shore, but, during the rest of today and thereafter, twitchers are sure  to be scanning the sea off the length of the Lincolnshire Coast in the hope of catching a glimpse.

One, Robin Drake, of Sheffield, said: "This is a sensational discovery  - it must be the biggest bird story of the past 100 years."

The St Kilda auk of 1840 was reported killed after being blamed as ‘a witch in disguise’ that, days earlier, had caused a devastating storm.

However, it was thought the killing of a pair - and the destruction of their egg - on the island of Geyrfuglasken, off the coast of Iceland, in 1844 spelt the end for the species.

Until now!

Continued Robin: "This finding suggests that there may still be a small breeding population on one of the thousands of rocky outcrops  off the west coast of Scotland."

Another  more fanciful theory is that a mischievous scientist may have managed to recreate the bird using DNA from a museum-borrowed specimen.

The great auk has a relative, the little auk which is scarce but not thought to be threatened with extinction.

As its name might indicate, it is smaller than its more famous cousin.

Strange how rare birds always seem to turn up on April 1.