Leach's Storm-petrels many miles inland

Here is just one example of the unusual situations created by Hurricane Irene.... a Leach's Storm-petrel fighting the wind over Bantam Lake, CT forty miles inland from the nearest salt water....

Leach's Storm-Petrel on Bantam Lake, CT August 28, 2011.  This photo thanks to Fran Zygmont 

Notice that this nice photograph captures so many of the field marks:  the long angled wings, the slightly forked tail, the feet not projecting beyond tail, the pale bar on the upper wing reaching the leading edge of the wing, and the somewhat divided white rump patch.

Remember that (unlike Wilson's Storm-petrels) this is a very wary open ocean bird which is often hard to attract close to a boat, even 100 miles out on the ocean, and yet here it is on an inland fresh water lake!

And here is a recent map of the Leach's Storm-petrel distribution from eBird....note the paucity of reports from Connecticut, prior to August 28th.....

Thanks to Fran Zygmont for this photograph of this oceanic species far from its normal ocean travels, and for entering this field report into eBird this week (which will soon be reflected as a new little pink rectangle in west central Connecticut)!