Apparently this bird has been found in good numbers in Florida since about ten years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Swamphens_in_North_America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Swamphen http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-purple-swamp-hen-b040509pnapr05,0,1616638.story "He estimated the current population at 2,000 to 3,000.""The swamphen has the potential to spread up through Florida and into other Southeastern states, Hardin said."
http://SunSentinel.com/swamphenSeems to me it's been pretty windy this winter. Maybe those shingles that blew off my roof were because they were hit by a flying Purple Swamphen being blown in FL ;-)
Brian On Apr 27, 2009, at 11:03 PM, cbirding@xxxxxxx wrote:
I know how this report will be perceived but bear with me... Location: Mt. Carmel Church Rd. on Wilson Creek Observation date: 4/26/09Notes: While driving on the back side of Bernheim Forest I spotted whatappeared to be a Purple Gallinule. I did not see a red bill as it waspecking on the sandbar. I did see a very dark blue to black bird with very red legs dangling as the bird took to flight. Colleen and I immediately started digging through an older copy of National Geographic and could find nothing similar. We searched for 30 - 40 minutes but could not relocate the bird. It was after we got home and started going through other books when a casual mention of a Purple Swamphen with an illustration appeared in Sibley's Guide to Birds (p. 154). This is without a doubt the bird I saw; Colleen was looking elsewhere. I did call Brainard Palmer-Ball to discuss the probability or lack thereof. I continued to research this for a couple of hours today and came to the sameconclusion. Number of species: 1 Purple Swamphen 1 Tom Becker This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
-- Brian Stern brians99@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
