There it was, perched serenely on the 35-17 runway sign of the Katama airfield: a red-footed falcon, Falco vespertinus, the first sighting of its species on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

The news was heralded on the front page of The New York Times, in the Boston Globe, across the Internet. In birding circles, this was a spectacular event - once in a lifetime, some called it, that a species would be recorded venturing thousands of miles off-course, settling so far from its natural range.