busconews.com

by Neil A. Case

Asked recently, “What’s the rarest bird you’ve seen in Indiana,” I responded after a short pause, “black-necked stilt.” Certainly that’s a rare bird in Indiana though it’s common in suitable places in the west and southwest. I think the person who asked the question meant rare in Indiana. He seemed satisfied with my answer anyhow.

Thinking about it since then, however, I’m not satisfied. I’ve seen black-necked stilts in Indiana twice, five once wading in a muddy puddle in a pasture and on another occasion two that flew over a beach in a state recreation area. As I wrote in my last article, I’ve seen snowy owls in Indiana twice too, but each time I saw only one. So I’ve seen fewer snowy owls in Indiana than black-necked stilts. Are the owls more rare in the state than black-necked stilts?

If snowy owls aren’t more rare in the Hoosier State than black-necked stilts, I’ve remembered other birds I’ve seen in the state that are. Pacific loon for one. Pacific loons nest in northern and northwestern Canada and Alaska. They fly southwest in fall and spend the winter along the Pacific Coast of the U.S.

But one once flew southeast in fall and landed on a lake in northcentral Indiana. Someone saw it, told me about it and I went out on the lake in a boat and saw it several times.

I saw a blue grosbeak in north-central Indiana once. A blue grosbeak is not uncommon in southern Indiana and farther south but it is in northcentral Indiana. I saw a northern shrike in Indiana once.

I saw a yellow-headed blackbird in Indiana once.  Yellow-headed blackbirds are western birds although their summer range extends east across Wisconsin and northern Illinois.  But not Indiana. However, I saw one once, not only in Indiana but in the cattails of the marsh on our property.

I saw a Harris’s sparrow in northcentral Indiana once. Harris’s sparrows nest in northcentral Canada and spend the winter in the southcentral plains of the U.S. I saw a groove-billed ani in Indiana once. This is a bird of southern Texas, along the coast and the Rio Grande River and south in eastern Mexico. Someone else saw it and told me about it and I didn’t believe them. But when someone else, a friend and a good birder, saw it and told me about it I went to look for it and found it easily exactly where I’d been told it was.

I saw a golden eagle in Indiana once. It was reported to me as an immature bald eagle but when I saw it I knew that was no immature bald eagle. I had just recently moved to Indiana then and when I told my boss and someone else that the bird they had both called a bald eagle was a golden they didn’t believe me. However two days later a professor of ornithology at Purdue University and his class saw that bird and the professor agreed with my identification.

Those are all species of birds that are rare in Indiana but not in other areas. All except the blue grosbeak which is uncommon in southern Indiana but rare in northern Indiana where I saw one.

I’ve seen two birds in Indiana that are rare in number. One was a Kirtland’s warbler that I saw in Gary, Indiana, near the shore of Lake Michigan and a whooping crane in northwest Indiana a few miles from the Winamac State Fish and Wildlife Area.

Why didn’t I think of one of those other birds when I was asked what was the rarest bird I’d seen in Indiana? Why didn’t I think of and name Arctic loon or groove-billed ani or golden eagle or the yellow-headed blackbird that visited our marsh or Kirtland’s warbler or whooping crane? Why did I think of black-necked stilt?