I diligently read the Bird News in the Gazette, to keep up with my Vineyard birder friends and would-be bird friends. Although the coverage is typically Martha’s Vineyard-centric, I thought it would be appropriate to mention an article by Tom Stienstra in the San Francisco Chronicle (Jan. 22 2017) showing two unusual local photos: a Ross’s gull from Siberia seen in the Half Moon Bay harbor (5,000 miles from home), and a vermillion flycatcher from the southwestern U.S., perhaps a thousand miles away. After hundreds of people reported seeing the Ross’s gull, it reappeared in a field of Brussels sprouts a mile away, where it was bushwhacked by a pair of peregrine falcons. “After a flight of 9,000 miles, one of the rarest wildlife sightings in California history ended up as lunch,” the story said.

(I do not recall the Gazette noting the unusual 2002 California sighting of a male falcated duck (teal) from northern Asia taking up residence for several weeks in the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, although I may have reported it to the Gazette at the time. We clearly have continuing evidence of severe climate change.)

Peter G. Neumann
Palo Alto, Calif. and Chilmark