NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Even birds can get turned around from time to time.
A rare subtropical wood stork was spotted in a very unexpected place recently – Wisconsin, after the bird apparently got lost inflight.
The wood stork typically lives in the Gulf Coast states as well as Central and South America.
The bird, which is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, was first seen last Sunday by a man hunting deer in the Mud Lake Wildlife Area in Columbia County, Wisconsin, northeast of Madison.
“It’s always fascinating where these birds come from and where they end up,” Horicon Marsh Bird Club President Jeff Bahls, who is also a wildlife technician for the state Department of Natural Resources, said.
“This is the time of year when we do get these oddball stray birds,” he added.
The hunter first sent Bahls photos of the wood stork that he took during the sighting on Sunday.
Bahls viewed the bird for himself on Monday, saying he thinks it’s a juvenile that hatched this spring because of its light-colored bill.
As wood storks get older, their bills eventually turn black.
He said young wood storks typically go exploring in the summer because they have no territory.
They are also the only species of stork that breeds in North America.
The stork was last seen on Tuesday flying northeast with a flock of pelicans.
The wood stork was once endangered with only 5,000 nesting pairs in the United States in the 1970s, but as of 2023 that had grown to more than 11,000 nesting pairs, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
The birds became a protected species in 1984.
Wood storks have also been forced to move north because of habitat destruction and climate change.
“The wood stork has made a remarkable comeback, but wetland destruction from urban sprawl still looms large over the species,” Stephanie Kurose of the Center for Biological Diversity previously said in a statement. “The Service needs to ensure that wetlands will be protected. It’s also crucial to continue to adequately monitor the stork’s population to make sure ongoing threats don’t undo this hard-fought success.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The post Rare sighting as threatened bird species likely got lost, ending up 1,000 miles from home in Wisconsin appeared first on Fox News.
