August 12, 2004
EVERYONE WANTS OUT OF EUROPE:
Accidental tourist: Rare red-footed falcon is surprise guest on Vineyard (Beth Daley, August 12, 2004, Boston Globe)
Martha's Vineyard is bracing today for an onslaught of tourists who are coming not for the beaches, but for a single bird.A red-footed falcon, a bird of prey never before recorded in the Western Hemisphere, was spotted on the island earlier this week, thousands of miles from its normal summer home in Eastern Europe. The juvenile male is, perhaps fittingly, at an airport. An estimated 100-120 people flocked to Edgartown's Katama Airfield yesterday to watch the bird sit on sign posts, circle overhead, and, a crowd-pleaser, swoop after dragonflies and grasshoppers.
When well-known birder E. Vernon Laux spotted the slate-gray falcon on Sunday, he first thought it was a different bird, a Mississippi kite. But something about it didn't sit right, so on Tuesday he forwarded a picture of the bird to Harvard ornithologist Jeremiah Trimble.
''My heart started beating faster when I saw it," Trimble said. He caught the next ferry to the Vineyard.
Eurotrash. Nantucket is right next door. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 12, 2004 8:44 AM
But he is from Eastern Europe, and they seem to grasp the concept of America better nowadays than Western Europeans do, so don't be that hard on him. Plus, he's obviously a hunter, which makes him anethema to your average Nantucket summer resident, and he could release some airborne bird shot on one or two unsuspecting Democrats before the vacation season is over...
Posted by: John at August 12, 2004 8:51 AMWe caddies were never averse to killing wildlife.
Posted by: oj at August 12, 2004 9:42 AMWait a minute, I thought we were all for hard-working immigrants who want to make America home. The Globe described him as cooperative, a hard hunter, etc. What's not to like?
Posted by: cornetofhorse at August 12, 2004 12:58 PM