Good evening ONTBIRDS subscribers, I thought that Ontario's birders (and those outside Ontario who may want to visit) should have all available information regarding such a rare species for eastern North America (even anywhere outside the Aleutian Islands, Alaska). Whether this changes your mind on the provenance of the bird on the St. Lawrence River or not is your respective opinion.
I started looking into it because I recalled a note from someone after the Whitby Harbour bird sightings (which I twitched too), speaking to a couple of escaped collector's Smew at that time. I've done some searching through ebird to see what other sightings have been noted in eastern North America, because I would think that with a Eurasian species such as this, there would be more sightings along the east coast, with relatively fewer in the interior of the continent (as with species like Tufted Duck). It became immediately obvious that this was not the case and that only two sightings came from the coast, one was well-reported in Newport, Rhode Island in 1976, with 1 report from a little west of that site in 1978, also in Rhode Island. Outside of those two sightings there have been no other reports from the east coast (in ebird). The remainder of eastern North American sightings come from the Great Lakes, starting with one in 1960 along the Niagara River, another at Normandale (Long Point area) in 1973 and then the last 3 in 2011 (Whitby), 2012 (Long Point) & 2015 (Cornwall). There was also one noted from the western tip of Lake Superior in Wisconsin back in 2000. Link to ebird Smew sightings here: http://goo.gl/1V2YzM It is possible that there are other sightings of Smew that have not been accepted and thus don't show up in ebird in a quick search like I've done but with such a rare bird, all big listers and serious birders living within a couple of hours reach (and beyond) of a bird this rare in North America, would be out twitching, many of which would have uploaded those sightings to ebird. I then searched for Smew with waterfowl collectors and found a Rosemary Miner who owns a huge aviary in New York State, about 50km south of Buffalo, with a direct line to the Lake Erie shoreline being about 40km as the Smew flies. I decided to e-mail Ms. Miner to ask whether she's lost any waterfowl lately, and the response was a bit of a shocker, she immediately said that she had lost a female Smew approximately 1 month ago when a tree fell on the aviary and tore it open. She does not pinion her birds...the two aviaries are so large that she has her ducks & geese flying from one to another - her website claims that she has the largest aviary in the world. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, I'd love to add this species to my list as much as the next birder, but this information, in my opinion is key to understanding this bird's provenance - I think too coincidental for it to be a truly wild bird, but once again, this is your decision. I post this to ensure other birders make a fully-informed decision upon whether they make the trek to look for this bird near Cornwall, Ontario. Best regards & good birding, Frank Pinilla Richmond Hill, ON PS - I did ask whether she had any Pink-footed Geese in her collection, to which she said no and I also asked whether she knew of any others with PFGO, she said no. _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to birdalert@ontbirds.ca For information about ONTBIRDS including how to unsubscribe visit http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdssetup Posting guidelines can be found at http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdsguide
