Call it Stint Fever. Call it the Asian Flew. Call it being under the influence of Malheur. Sometimes the stress of finding (or expecting to find) something rare or interesting gets to be too great and a birder snaps. Most birders have been there. It seems to be worse right after something truely rare has turned up. The reference to stints speaks to this. The number of Long-toed Stint reports always seems greatest around the time the one or two annual Red-necked Stints appear in July and August along the West Coast.
So it shouldn't be surprising that after the mother of all megararities was announced a few weeks ago that hysteria begins to set in.
Today on ID-frontiers comes a report of a possible female BACHMAN'S WARBLER photographed in Cuba. back in 2002. Plausible, but unlikely. The last reliable report of a Bachman's Warbler was from 1962 in South Carolina. The species wintered pretty much exclusively in Cuba. It is presumed extinct and unlike the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, no significant stretches of habitat remain.
There is video, but it hasn't been posted, yet.
Stay tuned.
Posted by mbalame at May 17, 2005 2:34 AM