PUBLISHED
FEBRUARY 11, 2019 UPDATED FEBRUARY 11, 2019
“I don’t know what I got myself into.”
Denise
Smith is laughing lightly, though most people would hardly find funny what has
happened to her over the past couple of weeks.
The
grandmother and 30-year daycare provider loves birds. She and husband James
live in a tidy bungalow that backs onto wooded parkland in Ottawa’s Pinecrest
Creek area, and for years they have kept feeders in the backyard.
Their
house has no curtains on the rear windows and she says there is nothing she
likes better than “sitting in my La-Z-Boy looking out on nature.”
She just
had no idea that one day there would be 100 people staring back at her.
Visitors
of the human species were not what those feeders were intended to attract.
Here’s
what happened: A small songbird Ms. Smith could not recognize landed on one of
the feeders in late January. It was very tiny, with white wing bars and a hint
of blue. She took a photograph and sent it off to a friend seeking
identification.
The bird,
it turned out, was a rare lazuli bunting, a male whose plumage will turn bright
blue come spring. It should be wintering in Mexico. It has been spotted in this
part of the world only 11 times – and never in the dead of winter.
The
bunting’s discovery marked the highlight of months of strange sightings in the
National Capital Region.
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