We’re all birders now: the joys of an encounter with a winged stranger

A birdwatcher and writer explains why the rare sighting of an American flycatcher species in Kent caused such excitement

Birds on passage beautifully stitch the world together. The swallows that bred yards from my front door in the Fens this summer may now be gracing a pond on a friend's farm in southern Zambia - and not one of them carrying bags or passports.

It has been a busy few days for birds and birders. September is mega month and this year has delivered. More than half the birds in the northern hemisphere are migratory and are now on the move. Most of the birds leaving their summer homes head south, but some (often youngsters who haven't made the journey before) go wrong and, through a fault in their own navigation or blasted by adverse weather, stray badly off course.