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Hopefully this will be of interest to some...

We have just had a record confirmed by the NHM of the flat-fly Ornithomya biloba, collected from a Paddyfield Warbler (Acrocephalus agricola) on 7 October 2007 on the Sussex coast.

Apparently this is very host specific, just found on swallows and martins. This bird almost certainly picked up the parasite in a reedbed roost of birds. For info, the nearest regular breeding of Paddyfeld Warbler is around the Black Sea.

Mark Grantham
British Trust for Ornithology