Birds

Chukar on the Loose

April 3, 2007 by Mike 12 Comments

One of the most interesting aspects of knowing one’s avifauna is being able to recognize birds that don’t belong. Case in point, I received an e-mail the other day from Levittown, NY of all places with the following photo and a couple more like it:

Chukar
Photo by Joe Weinman

Joe, the photographer, and his daughter encountered this handsome fowl in his yard. He snapped one photo as it flew from his roof to his neighbor’s roof. Then, he followed the bird to a grassy area across the street for a few more shots. Understandably, he was curious about what kind of bird this was.

The bird in question is a Chukar (Alectoris chukar), a Eurasian species of partridge. The Chukar is quite an unexpected sighting on Long Island, since this upland gamebird, the National Bird of Pakistan, is not even remotely native to North America. Instead, this bird is almost certainly an escapee from a game farm or zoo. It is a beauty though! Levittown, by the way, was the first truly mass-produced suburb and is widely regarded as the archetype for postwar suburbs throughout the country.

Chukar
Chukar on a rampage, Photo by Joe Weinman

Written by Mike
Mike is a leading authority in the field of standardized test preparation, but he's also a traveler who fully expects to see every bird in the world. Besides founding 10,000 Birds in 2003, Mike has also created a number of other entertaining but now extirpated nature blog resources, particularly the Nature Blog Network and I and the Bird.