It has already attracted hundreds of excited birdwatchers with its unlikely arrival from across the Atlantic.

Last night there were fears that the white-crowned sparrow that has arrived in the garden hedge of a retired vicar in Norfolk had also attracted the attention of the next-door neighbour’s cat.

Birdwatchers who hope the sparrow will survive cannot have been encouraged when they learnt that the cat into whose patch the wind-buffeted creature has flown goes by the name of Hooligan.

It was first spotted last Thursday in the village of Cley-next-the-Sea by Richard Bending and his wife, Sue, who were scratching around in their walled garden. By Friday — with the help of a birdwatching book from the library — they were puzzling over the fact that it appeared to be a creature that had no business on these shores.

By Saturday they had identified it formally and made the fact of its presence known to the wider birdwatching community, whose members began to arrive almost immediately. More than 1,000 of them have now visited the Bendings’ hedge and the garden bird-feeders that the couple have set up for it, adding to a collection for the village church by way of thanks.

Birds that lose themselves so far of course seldom live long, and the birdwatchers, the vicar, his wife and the villagers of Cley are watching the bird’s every move, hoping that it may yet survive. It is not yet known whether Hooligan has been made aware of the white-crowned sparrow, but ornithologists have highlighted cats as a potential threat.

Mrs Bending, 59, a retired librarian, said: “We were quite happy to share it with the public. It was just in a position in our garden where it was not possible for people to see without inconveniencing us or frightening the bird. We moved the feeders and didn’t know if it would work, but the bird moved too. It spends a lot of time in the hedge and comes out on to the driveway where people have put down seed.”

The white-crowned sparrow lives in Canada and the western and southern United States and rarely crosses oceans. Only four have been spotted in Britain in the past century.

Hopes that this bird may survive in its new environment — and against the wiles of Hooligan — were raised by the sight of it taking up with a group of finches. Perhaps it would find safety in numbers. Meanwhile, at the house next door, Hooligan was unavailable for comment.

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