POINT PENINSULA, N.Y. (AP) - Birders have been gathering at the eastern shore of Lake Ontario for a rare glimpse of a willow ptarmigan, an Arctic species making what the American Birding Association calls its first recorded appearance in New York.
Jeffrey Gordon, president of the birding association, says Monday that the snow-white bird is a long way south of its range on the permanently frozen tundra of northern Canada and Alaska. He says the appearance was only the second recorded in the Lower 48 states in a century.
The pudgy, chicken-size bird has been hanging out for several days on Point Peninsula, 65 miles north of Syracuse. It has been feeding on willow buds and generally ignoring the flocks of gawking birders adding it to their life lists.
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