At the State Journal, there’s a story about a rare bird — at least rare for our part of the country:
Thousands of miles from its normal West Coast winter haunts, the bird showed up at perhaps the very best place it could have picked to create a stir in the local birding world – Eagle Optics, the Middleton binocular store where birding enthusiast Mike McDowell works….
The last time a golden-crowned sparrow was recorded in Wisconsin was Nov. 26, 1992, to April 18, 1993, in Sheboygan, according to records kept by the Wisconsin Ornithological Society. Prior to that were sightings in the 1960s in Bayfield and in the mid-1800s in Racine.
See, Birders flock to catch glimpse of rare golden-crowned sparrow.
Here’s a picture of this impressive, regal species:
