The man who found the first black winged kite in the UK near Newtown said he feels “fortunate, shocked and very lucky”.

Martyn Owen, a Shropshire based ornithologist and ecologist, spotted the bird outside Newtown on his way to work.

“I was driving to work, my wife was coming with me to do an ecology survey in Newtown,” said Mr Owen.

“I saw a bird on the side of the road that was obviously something very different to what I am used to seeing in the area and the UK. Fortunately, there was a pull in right next to us, we pulled in and then immediately realised what it was – I was in Morocco two weeks before looking at a black wing kite in Morocco, so I had a very fresh mental image of what they look like.”

The species is usually found in open land and semi-deserts in sub-Saharan Africa and tropical Asia as well as having a foothold within Europe in Spain and Portugal - but has never been sighted in the wild in the UK before. At this point Mr Owen and his wife, Laura, had to move very quickly.

“Then proceeded four minutes of panic, excitement and stress,” said Mr Owen.

“I immediately got on the phone to my long-term friend and business partner Richard and asked him to put the news out so that some others could come and see.

“Then Laura, my wife, got her phone out to try and document the sighting so we could prove that it was what we knew it was.

“We were just hoping the bird would stick around for others to see. But relatively quickly after about five minutes it drifted off to the west, we jumped in the car and tried to follow it along the road but it had disappeared from view behind some buildings and some woodland.

“That was it five minutes of complete mayhem that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

OTHER NEWS: 

For Mr Owen this is the high point in career that he loves – “I have been a birder all my life since I was a little boy in Shropshire with my dad teaching me to find nests, so that’s where the passion came from.

“I spend a lot of my life travelling the UK - Shetland, Cornwall, Norfolk all parts of Wales trying to find rare birds. But these ultra rare UK firsts, you just can’t plan for it.

“I’ve spent a lot of my life looking and not finding anything and then this magical moment occurred on the side of a relatively quiet road in Wales that I drive along at least once a week."

Want to stay up to date with all the latest stories from Powys? Click here to sign up for our morning and daily email newsletters and click on the + for the ‘Morning Briefing’ and the 'Daily Catch-Up'.

Mr Owen said the moment was made even more special as he was able to share it with his wife.

“I’m usually on my own,” said Mr Owen. “Because the length of the sighting was so short if she hadn’t been able to take the video whilst I was getting my binoculars and scope out of the car there might not have been enough time to capture the video – it was really nice to share that moment together.

“You can’t plan these things, luck was on my side that day and there was the bird, just very, very fortunate and grateful.”