I've heard about six purple gallinule (Porphyria martinica) records in Ohio thus far this season, in Lorain, Medina, Ottawa, Miami, Greene/Warren, and Richland/Morrow counties. It seems very likely there are others that have gone unobserved or at least unreported. This New World bird of wetlands well to our south is a notorious vagrant, with records in Labrador, South Africa, Iceland, and western Europe. At times vagrants find true love and breed; a successful nest in Franklin County, Ohio, in 1962 remains the northernmost on record, and the state's only recorded nest: see http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v081n02/p0224-p0226.pdf . Ohio has dozens of records of vagrants, and Peterjohn mentions times during which multiple records exist for Ohio: 1877, with five birds (four in Cincinnati), and six in Montgomery County alone on 18 March 1989. Five way back in 1877, with comparatively few observers around, is a momentous event. As for the Montgomery birds, it seems possible they--like the Cincinnati ones--may have arrived all at once, as a flock, but our present six may have another cause. Why so many? Certain birds, especially young ones, of southern wetlands tend to wander north after breeding, but seldom in spring. More rarely, birds arrive here--think of the small flock of spoonbills we had eight years ago--for reasons less well understood, but that may include widespread losses of habitat due to drought. I can't find any evidence of that in this case, but I could be wrong. There's a gallinule in Kentucky now, but I don't see any evidence of an invasion in nearby states anything like ours. It's mysterious, and I'm sure we'd all like to know more if someone has some more information or a theory that fits what we know. In the meantime, it might pay off to examine quiet ponds and other wetlands with lots of floating aquatic vegetation like pickerel weed, water lily, spatterdock, lotus, etc. Bill Whan Columbus p.s. What we call the "purple swamphen" is often mischaracterized as the "purple gallinule," so check the scientific name. This Old World species, Porphyrio porphyrio, is now pretty much established in Florida (apparently after some birds liberated from a zoo by Hurricane Andrew successfully started a population), but the state recently began an eradication program based on the evidence that it remains just another introduced exotic crowding out native species. However, I noticed on the F&WS Web site news that since this species has been discovered to be a native bird in American Samoa, that qualifies it for the official US list, so I guess the eradications will stop and it has been, or will be, allowed to persist. Perhaps some day we'll see one in Ohio! ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]