I don't have news updating the status of the six purple gallinules know
to have been in Ohio beginning on 2 May 2010, except that the first
known arrival continues in Lorain County, where I saw it yesterday, hale
and hearty apparently.
        Brainard Palmer-Ball of Kentucky has contributed important information
to the picture, including the news that not one but three of these birds
appeared in Kentucky, and two in Tennessee, on a very similar schedule
this spring. He was kind enough to send this page
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lmk/?n=flood_050210_how_it_happened
from the NWS station in Louisville.
        Some extraordinary weather conditions on 1 and 2 May caused a lot of
destruction in the area, with winds as strong as 70 mph and at times 1-2
inches of rain per hour. This violent storm out of the southwest was
hemmed in somewhat by a strong high to the east, creating a turbulent
corridor of very strong northbound winds.
        It seems this condition accompanied a migratory movement of this
southern bird species, and these fairly weak fliers were literally
sucked up far north of their normal destinations. A northward movement
over what is usually a broad front and for a relatively short distance
was transformed into a narrow corridor that landed a lot of them way up
here.
        This seems perfectly plausible to me, and after everything is sorted
out it might be revealed that other species may have suffered the same
fate. It shows how we might learn to look for certain storm-waifs from
the south in rare spring conditions like these, just as we have learned
to anticipate wind-blown wanderers in the wake of hurricanes in the Gulf
of Mexico in the fall.
Bill Whan
Columbus

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