Another rare tropical bird spotted near Boulder County
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A juvenile wood stork feeds near the shoreline of Alexx & Michael's Pond in Broomfield on Thursday. Photo: RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images
Another tropical bird not seen in Colorado for decades has been spotted not far from Boulder.
The latest: The Denver Post reported that a juvenile wood stork hanging out in a pond in Broomfield has drawn hundreds of birders.
Context: Wood storks are North America's only native stork and typically prefer the swamps of Florida and Mexico, according to the National Audubon Society.
- According to the Post, this is only the third reported sighting of a wood stork in Colorado, and the first since 1934.
- A wood stork was also spotted in the less-than-tropical state of Wisconsin earlier this month.
Flashback: This is the second tropical bird to wind up in the Boulder County area this year.
- An anhinga, also known as a water snake, spent almost the whole summer at a pond in east Boulder County.
The intrigue: In the same way researchers are still puzzled by the behavior of Florida Man, birders don't know exactly why Florida birds sometimes wind up in strange places.
- Experts say birds can wind up in Colorado after major storms. But experts also say younger birds sometimes just simply don't know where they are going.
- "When birds get into odd places, it's very frequently the juveniles that make mistakes and get lost, so that's consistent with it wandering some, but why the heck it's here instead of Florida? Who knows," Peter Gent of Colorado Field Ornithologists told the Post.