Savannah Sparrow hoax and Bird Forum
You would have to have had your head in a bucket of sand for the past few days to not be aware of the fact that a birder claimed to have photographed a Savannah Sparrow in East Sussex last week. The photo appeared online and sent "at least 40 car loads of twitchers" sparrow-bound. The trouble was, the whole thing was a hoax. The birder in question even turned up on site and showed those who turned up where it had been. What he (it was a he) didn't bank on was for a team of Poirot/Morse/Marple-influenced birders to get to work on his image and come to the conclusion that the sort of barbed wire that his Savannah Sparrow was perched on in his photograph was of North American provenance and not the type found in Europe. Said hoaxer quickly retreated, 'fessed up, removed himself from various forums and is currently enjoying the sort of public profile that is enjoyed by the likes of Jimmy Savile, Adolf Hitler and Fred West. My first reaction was to have a bloody good lau...