A rare visitor has turned up in Orkney after being swept across the Atlantic Ocean by storms.

A long-billed dowitcher has been recorded on the island of Stronsay, with its main domicile of America being battered by Hurricane Jonas which has brought heavy snow falls to New York.

Only a handful of sightings are recorded annually in the UK of the bird, whose name derives from a word used by the Mohawk peoples.

The species itself looks like a cross between a godwit and a snipe – shaped rather like a rugby ball, with a long bill and oddly short legs.

Long-billed dowitchers breed in the Arctic tundra of North America and Siberia, and winter in California and Central America. But sometimes, on their travels, they wander off course.

Millions of Americans were left snowed in by heavy falls in Washington, New York and north-east states, killing at least 19 people. The weekend’s storm was the second largest in New York City’s history.