A Northern Lapwing

The local press is happily reporting intense interest in a rare bird sighting. Apprarently before now the northern lapwing has never been seen in Maryland. Here's what they say on the web site of WJZ Eyewitness News:

There have been 22 documented sightings of the northern lapwing in the United States, but none in Maryland until Saturday afternoon, when Lynn Nelson of Frederick spotted it on Jeff and Denise Bryant's horse-breeding farm about 75 miles northwest of Baltimore. "When we drove up to the bird, we thought it was a killdeer," Nelson's husband, Skip, told The Frederick News-Post. He said they posted their discovery on the Internet, prompting a flurry of e-mails and the hasty arrivals of excited birders. The Maryland Ornithological Society has posted some of their photographs on its World Wide Web site, www.mdbirds.org."

The image comes from the Wikipedia entry for the bird.