One of the major questions for me about the odds for this being a wild bird is whether or not the species typically shows a pattern of long-range vagrancy. This is not that easy to assess, as its population is small (about 10,000 birds in the wild) and its breeding range is in extremely poorly birded territory. But there have been vagrant records from Kazakhstan and eastern India, both over 1000 miles west of the breeding grounds and regular wintering areas. Go just a bit farther than this to the northeast of the known breeding grounds, and you are on the Alaskan mainland.
But then there remains the question of how it would have wound up with the eastern Sandhill Cranes give that the different populations of Sandhills don't even mingle over very much. But, it isn't a Sandhill, and it is not a mated breeding bird with a nesting territory to hold it in place. So it is possible to imagine it wandering farther east over time, associating with different groups of Sandhills as it goes. I find it interesting that the three records in the last 20 months have each been progressively farther east (Idaho spring 2010, Nebraska spring 2011, Tennessee fall 2011), almost as if it is all the same bird, continuing the eastward wandering that originally brought it across from Asia. Normally I would disregard the chances of the same individual vagrant being found three times in three different states, but a crane is different -- large, boldly marked, visible from far away, and birds that people especially are drawn to watching in their major stopovers and wintering grounds.
Just speculation, of course. But is is a scenario. Bill Pulliam Hohenwald TN
On Dec 14, 2011, at 6:19 PM, Kevin A. Calhoon wrote:Got to see the Hooded Crane as it came to roost tonight on a bar in front of the viewing area. Spectacular bird!I am planning to contact both the Idaho and Nebraska Bird Record Committees, curious about their insight.Also am going to ask for information from the zoo bird listserve which I belong too and see what their thoughts are about any more possible escapes, etc…. should be very interesting.Kevin Calhoon Assistant Curator of Forests Tennessee Aquarium 423-785-4070
