While on a recent go to to the Chicago Botanic Garden, Ann Harness noticed a creature she’d by no means seen earlier than. The tall brown chook with a protracted invoice appeared like a cross between a rail and a heron.
It was a limpkin — removed from its home.
The bird lives in tropical areas, from southern Florida to the Caribbean islands, Mexico and Central and South America, the place it provides a piercing cry from its wetland habitat.
Harness’s sighting was one in every of no less than 24 in Illinois this 12 months.
“Limpkins spend their time in wetlands and aren’t that easy to see, so there’s probably a whole bunch more that we don’t know about in Illinois,” mentioned Mike Ward, an avian ecologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey.
Geoff Williamson, recording secretary of the Illinois Ornithological Records committee, agreed.
“Of all the bird species that have expanded their range northward into Illinois, the limpkin is the most dramatic,” mentioned Williamson, a longtime Chicago resident.
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Though local weather change might rapidly come to thoughts as a purpose for the enlargement, biologists say this phenomenon has much more to do with the introduction into the United States of a number of nonnative snail species, a brand new meals supply for the limpkin.
Others have been seen this 12 months at McGinnis Slough in Orland Park, McHenry Dam in McHenry County and Grass Lake in Lake County. Two have been reported on the Nygren Wetlands in Winnebago County, and others have been discovered farther south in counties similar to Bureau and Johnson, the place two have been seen collectively.
“Illinois had its first (sighting) in 2019 (in Olney), then two each during 2021 and 2022, and now I can’t keep pace with the records in 2023,” Williamson mentioned.
Hundreds of nature lovers are touring the state to doc this species for his or her state and county lists.
The Chicago Botanic Garden limpkin has been seen most days since Aug. 13, and a few of the others are additionally nonetheless round.
The limpkins are feasting on mussels and snails, utilizing their uniquely tailored payments to retract the mussel or snail from inside its shell.
Once nearly wiped out in Florida, the limpkin has recently spread to the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana, where it successfully nested.
In the late 1990s, limpkin populations were declining in Florida as wetlands were drained and their main food supply, the native Florida apple snail, was decreasing. In the mid-2000s, various types of apple snails native to Central and South America as well as Asia were introduced to the United States, often for use in aquariums.
The nonnative snails have been tossed outdoors into waterways, and their populations began to explode.
Limpkins began eating the nonnative snails and increasing their numbers in Florida. They may have started to move northward as a result.
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Other Midwest states documenting wandering limpkins within the last few years include Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.
Ward said potentially more droughts in the South due to climate change could affect the limpkins’ actions.
“They have to move and find better habitat for feeding,” he mentioned. “But I don’t think that is explaining the overall increased population of this species.”
As with different water birds, the limpkins could also be participating in what’s known as post-breeding dispersal. After leaving their nests, immature birds like little blue herons typically fly north looking for meals, then fly again south for the winter.
“Though considered nonmigratory, limpkins may now be engaging in this new kind of behavior, and food supply and increase in population could be causing it,” Ward mentioned.
Meanwhile, the nonnative snails are inflicting issues in aquatic ecosystems in Florida, Louisiana and different states.
Officials hope the limpkin might assist preserve the invasive species in verify. But it is going to be troublesome, as a result of most of the launched snails can reproduce twice as quickly because the native ones, based on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
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While Illinois does have the invasive Chinese mystery snail, typically thought-about an apple snail, it additionally has 75 extra mussels, snail and clam species the limpkins can eat. Mussels, snails and clams belong to the massive group of aquatic creatures known as mollusks, soft-bodied organisms with out backbones enclosed in a tough shell.
“That’s a niche the limpkins seem to be taking advantage of in Illinois,” Ward mentioned. “They seem to be hanging out in wetlands with a good population of snails and freshwater mussels,” he mentioned.
The limpkins have been documented consuming each native and nonnative mollusks in Illinois and Iowa.
Stoil Ivanov, who has videoed many uncommon and customary birds within the Chicago space, took a video in late August of the limpkin on the Chicago Botanic Garden because it pried open a big mussel. It took the limpkin no less than 4 minutes to get on the meal contained in the exhausting outer shell.
Even birders who don’t take into account themselves “chasers” have gone to see a limpkin found close to the place they dwell in Illinois.
“Normally I don’t chase vagrant species,” mentioned Wanda Supanich of Libertyville. But the limpkin has been on the Chicago Botanic Garden for therefore lengthy that she mentioned she felt “obliged to make the effort to see it, and I’m glad I did.”
It took her three tries. She accompanied a bunch lugging their heavy scopes for a mile on a scorching day earlier than reaching the spot the place it had final been seen. Within 15 seconds, they noticed the chook. “It grabbed a huge freshwater clam and moved into the shadows to hammer the shell open,” she mentioned.
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Supanich, Harness and other birders and biologists wonder what will happen to the lingering limpkins when cold weather comes.
“Since they’re not usually migratory, they won’t have a clue what to do having by no means skilled winter,” Harness mentioned. “I’m heartbroken thinking about it.”
A limpkin seen in Ohio just a few years in the past remained there till December, and a video exhibits it feeding on snails buried by ice.
The chook later died after a chilly spell within the state.
Williamson mentioned he doesn’t assume limpkins can survive winters within the North, however he doesn’t know whether or not they’ll die or retreat south in winter after which transfer again north in spring.
“Biologists still don’t understand the mechanics of this invasion,” he mentioned.
Harness hopes the limpkin she found begins flying south quickly so it could actually discover meals in winter. “I’d like to think it will figure out what to do,” she mentioned.
