Inca Dove Making Headlines

The Inca dove (like one of the doves in the above photo) reported in Two Harbors is making headlines. Last night it was a headline on the Star Tribune web page and MPR interviewed Jim Lind, the man who found and photographed this first state record.

This morning fm107's Ian and Margery called and we talked about it on their show. They were referencing the part of the story where Jim describes seeing the bird for the first time. "I was shaking, I knew it was a very big deal," said Lind, an avid birder.

Margery asked, "Seriously, he was shaking?"

I tried to explain that it was a big deal to submit a first state record to a bird records committee and then the conversation derailed, "There's a state records committee for birds?!?"

They wanted to know if the guys on the records committee were fun or serious...I think we can guess the answer to that question.

I have not gone to see the Inca dove and probably will not. I have no immediate plans to visit that area up near Duluth and can't justify the gas. Also, I just got back from Texas where I trippin' over the tiny doves (note how tiny they are in the above photo--those are house sparrows mixed on the tray feeder with the doves). I'll be curious to see if it stays and for how long. It's great find for the state. I do wonder how it got here, they just don't seem that capable of long distance flight. But maybe it's taken over a year for it to get here--just gradually pushing north? What's weird is that during the Detroit Lakes Bird Festival this year, a hard core birder who lives in Florida and had done lots of birding in Texas thought he saw one fly off the road during the field trips. He was hesitant to bring it up and a small group went back to look for it and it was never found--was this the same dove that over the summer and fall traveled southeast towards Two Harbors? We had the green-tailed towhee last year that showed up in southern Minnesota after being banded in Canada.

Another birding mystery.