WORLD : Wayward Rare Bird Dies in Crash

A rare gray-cheeked thrush survived a freak flight across the Atlantic only to crash into a glass door and die as it arrived at a bird sanctuary in western England.

“It was a very sad ending to its long flight. There is glass on both sides of the building, and it was probably deceived because it could see right through to the grounds beyond and thought it had a clear run,” Basil Hughes, a researcher at the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust in Gloucestershire, said today.

He said the thrush, about six inches long with a speckled breast, was probably blown off course while migrating from its summer home in Canada to South America.