Snow bunting takes a winter break in Somerset

The commonest garden bird in Iceland, and no stranger to the Scottish Highlands, this visitor is taking the bunting equivalent to a holiday in the Med

Some birds are simply more compelling than others. Think bullfinches and barn owls, peregrines and storm petrels, gannets and golden eagles. The snow bunting is certainly high in the charisma stakes. I first saw them in 1973, swirling around a shingle beach in Norfolk, caught in a biting wind like flurries of snow. Since then I've watched them on their breeding grounds in Iceland, where they are the commonest of the very few "garden birds" found in that northerly land.

Once, I even saw one singing in the car park at Reykjavik airport. And I've often come across them in the Cairngorms, where they feed on the crumbs left by passing skiers. But we don't often get snow buntings in Somerset. So when I heard that one was spending the winter on my local patch alongside the River Parrett, I headed down there as soon as I could.