Hi All, I wanted to share a post that was on the Ontario Listserv back on December 22nd, written about the Alut Island Smew that was present around the same time across the NY border in Ontario. In a post by Frank Pinilla, he cautioned birders about counting the female/first winter male Smew:
"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." Though there is a chance this bird is not the same as the late December Smew, it is only about 70 miles down the same river (the St. Lawrence) from where it was seen in 2015. You can read the post on the December post on the Smew's provenance here: http://ontbirds.ca/pipermail/birdalert_ontbirds.ca/Week-of-Mon-20151221/079413.html Hate to rain on people's parade, but personally, I would not count this bird, at least with the information present at the moment. If this bird turns out to be a male though, things could change! Good Birding, Nathan Goldberg Ithaca, NY Tompkins County -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
