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An African bird – which is exceptionally rare in the UK – has been spotted hanging around bins with a pair of seagulls in west Cornwall.

Jude Kirk saw the raven-sized black and white bird in the town of St Just this week.

She said she knew at once it was not a magpie, although it shares the same kind of coloured plumage.

After research on the internet, it is believed the bird is an African pied crow – which is not resident to Europe at all.

She said: “It was hanging out with a jackdaw and a pair of seagulls by the recycling bins in the car park in St Just.

“I immediately thought it looked unusual. I am not a ‘twitcher’ but I do take an interest in birds but I couldn’t identify it at all.

“I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing at first. I knew it was something different.”

(Image: Jude Kirk)

Jude said she is convinced, having researched the bird online, that it is a pied crow. It is possible that the bird could have escaped from captivity or come to the UK on a ship.

(Image: Jude Kirk)

The Rare Bird Alert website also lists a pied crow – quite probably the same one - at Land’s End earlier this month. It lists only two other instances of such a bird in England this year, one in Yorkshire and the other in Sussex.