Now that migration has mostly passed, we who relish unusual species
look forward to wanderers. While we're out doing more important stuff
like atlasing breeding birds, we also keep an eye out for unusual birds,
which are almost by definition birds strayed from their range.
        With better communication we can watch some bird movements, so not all
lucky finds have to be bolts from the blue. Take the black-bellied
whistling-duck, for example, which we know to be burgeoning in places
like Texas and Florida, and also prone to wandering.
        Over the past week, they've been reported in Alabama (no big deal, you
may say), Virginia (hmmm), Arkansas and Missouri, Tennessee (pair
nesting), Illinois (aha), and Maryland (!). Some of this movement may be
guided, as so many others are, by the Mississippi River. Ohio's only
record of this bird came on 30 May in a suburb of Cincinnati, and the
Ohio is the Mississippi's largest feeder (double hmmm).
        These ducks are just as likely to plop down in a shopping-center pool
as a pristine preserve; the Cincinnati bird was found in an
apartment-complex pond. They were once called 'tree ducks'
('Dendrocygna' means 'tree-swan') because of a propensity to perch on
high. Anyway, the chances seem better than usual that alertness for this
species just might pay off in days to come. If you are the lucky one,
please share the joy on this list!
Bill Whan
Columbus

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