But some of the birds listed are more unusual than their names suggest. Maybe once a year or so. When they re here, you certainly get a lot of people going to look at them. The rufous hummingbird, which birders have also spotted this weekend, is a western species that doesn t breed in the east. I ask him about my mystery bird in the Mattamuskeet marshes, and he invites me to look it up in one of the many bird encyclopedias offered for sale.
Nothing looks quite right.
Finally I settle on a brown wading bird with white flecks on its neck and an unsteady, bobbing gait. Watson, a soft-spoken man, is unusually excited. You d better be absolutely positive about that. I experience a moment of mingled euphoria and panic as he tells me that a limpkin sighting will send people stampeding to their cars. Apparently birders will drive for hours at the chance of glimpsing a rare bird, and my dubious limpkin is much more likely in South America or western Florida than in the marshes of Lake Mattamuskeet.