Bird enthusiasts on Vancouver Island, on Canada’s Pacific coast, are abuzz over a tiny bird sighted several times in the last three weeks.
Birders from as far as Ohio and New Mexico are flocking to the rural neighbourhood in Saanich, British Columbia, just to catch a glimpse of this rare visitor.
The redwing (Turdus iliacus) is quite common in northern Europe and Asia, but had been spotted only three times before in north-western North America. Its nearest cousins live across the Bering Strait in Russia’s Chukotka peninsula.
Nathan Hentze, a biologist and a lifelong birder, who saw this latest rare visitor on Dec 19 during the Victoria Christmas Bird Count, said another redwing was seen in the same neighbourhood in 2013 by a man from Alberta.
“It was extremely exciting,” said Hentze, recalling the moment he caught a glimpse of the redwing. “You always go out hoping to get something unusual but you almost never do.”
This latest redwing appears to be a young, first-winter bird, he said.
“The odds of having two redwings show up in the same location just two years apart are infinitely small,” Hentze said. “Something in the features of this neighbourhood must be very attractive for them.”
There are several possible explanations for how the redwing ended up in British Columbia – from weather events like storms and hurricanes that could have blown the bird from its usual migration path to a genetic glitch that sent it migrating in the wrong direction, Hentze said.
He expects the redwing will hang around for the winter and attempt to migrate back to Eurasia in March, Hentze said.
In the meantime, the Strawberry Vale neighbourhood is getting used to all the media attention and the birders.
Some enterprising children have even set up a coffee stand, selling coffee to throngs of excited birders, Hentze said.
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