Every once-in-a-while a bird shows up a long way away from where it is supposed to be and the birding community goes a little bit crazy. That happened this past week in Palo Alto, CA. when an Oriental Turtle Dove showed up at a neighborhood feeder attracting birders from all over the country. The Scene
This is only the third California record for this bird and only a handful of other records exist for all of North America. It has been seen most reliably all week long between 7am and 9 am so on Friday when we didn't have school I took my chance, braved the commute traffic and arrived on the scene at about 8:20. What a show! I was told by one of the 100 or so birders that it had not yet been seen that morning so I took up station to wait with everybody else and within 5 minutes, there it was. First perched in a stunted Redwood tree, then flying directly over my head to a telephone wire where it showed off for the crowd for a couple of minutes, finally dropping onto some seed scattered in a yard. A little later it flew off and, to my knowledge, was not seen for the rest of the morning. This was unfortunate as I brought my sister (who lives nearby) back to see it and it did not reappear.
The crush to see the bird on the ground.
You can learn more about the finding of this bird from this article.
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