Local birders put another feather in their cap this week.
For the first time ever recorded, a black-necked stilt was spotted in the area. Avid birder and Prince George Naturalist Club key leader Clive Keen photographed the small interloper Monday morning in the Giscome area. It was first spotted on Sunday evening by Cathy Antoniazzi.
"This is really very exciting for local birders," he said. "It's very unusual to be able to add another species to the PG-and-area checklist. The sighting takes us from 297 species recorded locally to 298."
While the bird is not uncommon on the east side of the Canadian Rockies, it is very unusual on the B.C. side, "and almost unheard of in the north of the province," said Keen.
"It's also a very peculiar bird, with the bright red legs completely out of scale with the body," he described. "It's quite closely related to the beautiful avocet, but trades in the avocet's elegance for the ability to find food in deepish, still ponds."
There are practical reasons some birds veer off their usual track, like the snowy owl event a few years ago in this region which followed an overabundance of food in the western Arctic regions, causing a baby bird boom soon after. As a result, flocks of them branched out top uncommon locations in search of food.
Also, unexplained phenomena can direct foreign foul to unnatural habitat. These tend to have one or two sightings then nothing thereafter.
More and more, climate change is playing a role in the longer lists kept by any region's bird counters. This is difficult to correlate to any one surprise sighting, though, said Keen.
"Climate change is not an obvious reason why the bird would be spotted here. Climate change tends just to lead to some range extension of species. For example Lazuli buntings are now regularly seen and indeed breeding in Prince George, whereas in the past it was a more southerly bird, stopping at Quesnel or so.
"More likely, the bird just got caught up in the storm, or its internal compass has gone out of whack. Single birds such as this do surprise us from time to time."
Today marks another first for the Prince George Naturalist Club. At noon, their members and other officials will gather at the Hudson's Bay Slough footbridge down the hill from the Exploration Place front doors. A new information kiosk will be unveiled that will provide public knowledge about the Hudson's Bay Wetland Project and its new sponsor. All interested are invited to attend.
