This Long Island town had a lot to talk about.
A lazuli bunting, known to be native to the West Coast, has visited Meighan Madden Rocco’s bird feeder in Flanders, Long Island, to the delight of bird lovers at home and abroad.
Hundreds of tourists flocked from Connecticut, New Jersey and even Buffalo and Ithaca to see the blue songbird, which is rare in the Northeast and has only been seen once in New York in 1998.
“Some people saw this bird and started crying,” Rocco told the Post.
“They were praying for the birds, hugging each other and high-fiving each other. This seems to be on every birdwatcher’s bucket list.”
The creature first appeared on April 18th and continued to appear once every hour until Monday.
“This happens in any migration, but especially in a long migration like this. They stop along their route to refuel for the next leg,” she explains. did.
“And the bird experts I spoke to said Monday night had perfect conditions for migrating birds, and there were a lot of them flying that night.”
The first time Rocco saw the bird outside, he took a photo and sent it to a friend, a former wildlife officer with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
“She emailed me back almost immediately and said, ‘I think this is a lazuli bunting, but the location doesn’t make sense.'”
When her friend confirmed that it was indeed a Lazuli bunting, she reported it to the database as a rare bird sighting. ebird and added the photo too Facebook Group New State Rare Bird Alert.
“Then, probably within three to four hours, I started getting texts and emails and people calling me. I had no idea what was going to happen,” she said.
Spectators wanted to repay Rocco for this once-in-a-lifetime sighting and asked for donations to be made to Southampton Animal Shelter.
“They called me yesterday and a week later they are still trying to collect all the donations,” she said.
She said she didn’t mind having so many unexpected visitors.
“It didn’t bother me at all because I had so much fun watching people and their reactions. But it was definitely different waking up in the morning with binoculars and camera lenses pointed at my kitchen window,” she laughs. he said.
