17 August 2023
After a limpkin was once found out the day before today afternoon in a small cove at Moraine State Park (first ever in Butler County!) western PA’s birding global spun on its axis and temporarily went to seek out it. Many noticed the fowl the day before today together with Steve Gosser who shared his photograph above.
Limpkins (Aramus guarauna) are very, very uncommon this some distance north. Basically from South The usa, those mussel and snail-eating wading birds have prolonged their differ best to Florida the place they are living yr spherical.
So what’s a limpkin doing right here? And no longer simply “right here.” A limpkin confirmed up at Heart Creek Natural world Control Space ultimate month and was once nonetheless there ultimate weekend. Two limpkins have been in reverse corners of Ohio.
Actually, limpkins were doing this loopy Northern Summer time Consult with factor for a very long time however it seems that they’ve ramped up since 2016. On 8 July 2023 Tim Healy posted a map of Limpkin Firsts in North The usa on the ABA Uncommon Chicken Alert on Fb. (The colour descriptors are for the map.)
“Scorching Limpkin Summer time eternally! Stay it going! Who’s subsequent?
Inexperienced: house base
Blue: ancient first data
Orange: 2016-2022 first data
Pink: 2023 first data”
ABA Uncommon Chicken Alert on Fb: 8 July 2023, Tim Healy
This eBird map displays the place they’ve been in 2023 up till 16 August. (I’ve marked the Butler County sighting as a pink asterisk.)
Is that this an irruption of limpkins very similar to the iciness irruption of snowy owls? Possibly…
Younger night-herons steadily do an out-of-range dispersal on the finish of the breeding season when first-year birds discover to the north, then head house or die all through their journey. Possibly limpkins are doing it, too. Possibly they’ve had such a lot breeding good fortune that there are additional limpkins to take a look at it. (This circle of relatives of five was once photographed in Florida in 2014.)
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It’ll take a little research to grasp the solution. The limpkins aren’t announcing.
(pictures by means of Steve Gosser and from Wikimedia Commons, maps from Wikimedia and eBird)