Rob Conway wrote: Someone must have left an aviary door open in the Renton
area. I got a
call about 10 minutes ago from a colleague to "come see this weird bird"
in one of the trees at the Renton Boeing plant. I got there and what
was in the pine grove where I'd normally find Townsends Warblers, but a
Hoopoe (Upupa epops).

The bird is banded - blue left, red over white right, but I didn't have
optics to get a close look at coding. I watched for maybe 2 minutes
before he took off west, headed toward the Renton Muni Airport/Skyway
area, flying VERY well. I had someone tell me they were sure they saw 2
Wood Pigeons (Columba palumbus) at Coulon Park yesterday...

My response:
Neither species is regularly kept in North American zoos. The latest ISIS
abstract lists one female hoopoe at Kansas City Zoo and one female and one
unknown sex bird at Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake City. These species may be
held by private aviculturists but I haven't recently seen any of either
listed as available by animal suppliers.

Greg

Greg Toffic
Curator of Birds
Woodland Park Zoo "Black holes are where God
5500 Phinney Avenue N. divided by zero."
Seattle, WA 98103
(206) 684-4836 (Ph)
(206)233-7278 (FAX)