Rare sighting of vermilion flycatcher has Kansas City area birding community abuzz

When Rex Miller, a longtime master naturalist and birder, saw a small, bright red bird in a tree Monday at Kill Creek Park, he knew he was seeing something special.

“It was about half the size of a cardinal,” said Matt Garrett, a field biologist with the Johnson County Park and Recreation District. “He knew we didn’t have any small red birds here in the Midwest.”

So Miller, a senior park worker at the park at 116th Street and Homestead Lane, grabbed his binoculars to get a closer look. He confirmed that it was a vermilion flycatcher.

“He was quite surprised to see the bird,” Garrett said. “It’s way out of his range. He’s lost.”

Since birders started keeping track decades ago, the species has been sighted in Kansas and Missouri only 26 times.

It’s hard to tell how this bird got this far north, Garrett said. Storms could have blown him off course. Or it could be a young bird that got lost.

“It is definitely a rare sight,” Garrett said. “It should be down in southwest Texas and the southwest United States. So eastern Kansas is pretty far out of its range.”

Miller alerted local prominent bird watchers. That soon sent a buzz through the birding community.

Rodney Wright of Gardner learned of the sighting Monday afternoon through a fellow avid birder who had received an email from Miller. They made plans to join other birders and go for a look.

So about 4:30 p.m., Wright arrived at the park. He was familiar with the bird because he had seen the species in Arizona.

“As soon as I got there, I thought I heard a singing or calling,” he said. But he couldn’t see it.

Once other birders arrived, they began walking around the area. Within five minutes, they saw the bird.

“We were all amazed because it’s just a bird we don’t normally see in Kansas, especially the eastern part of the state,” he said. “We were excited and got some looks at it from a distance.”

Wright, the administrator of the Kansas Birding Facebook page, took photos to verify the sighting and submit it to the Kansas Ornithological Society to get it approved on the state’s list for Johnson County.

“We ended up getting pretty close to it,” Wright said. “We got some pretty amazing views of it.”

Other birders showed up Monday to look for the bird. Several birders went out Tuesday but couldn’t find it.

“We might not ever see one here again,” Wright said. “We might see one in five years. We might not see one again for 30 years. It’s just hard to say. It was just really cool to see. It really made my day.”

Wright, who keeps a list of birds that he sees, said this was the 260th kind he has seen in Johnson County and the 312th in Kansas.

Word of such rare sightings travels fast in the birding community, said Mary Nemecek, conservation chairwoman and board member at the Burroughs Audubon Society of Greater Kansas City.

“There’s an element of citizen science in what birders do,” Nemecek said. “Documenting a bird outside its range is important. Documenting birds that are abnormal here and start coming here frequently can indicate range expansion or using new areas.”

Take the painted bunting, for example. Also a southern bird, it has been nesting in the Olathe area for several years. The impact of climate change could be a reason, she said.

“We are starting to see ranges shift north from southern areas,” Nemecek said.

There are 17 recorded vermilion flycatcher sightings in Kansas. The previous closest sighting on the Kansas side of the metropolitan area happened May 19, 2002, in Leavenworth County, Nemecek said.

In Missouri, there have been nine recorded sightings, including one May 2, 2013, in Pleasant Hill and another May 5, 1958, in Forest Hill Cemetery in Kansas City.

This appears to be the time of year this bird gets lost. Looking at the Kansas records, 12 sightings occurred from April to early May, she said.

The excitement birders have surrounding the rare sighting is understandable, Nemecek said.

“It’s like seeing a monkey on the streets of Kansas City,” Nemecek said. “It’s just an animal whose habitat range is typically not here.”

This story was originally published April 13, 2016 at 1:46 PM with the headline "Rare sighting of vermilion flycatcher has Kansas City area birding community abuzz."