A Limpkin in Scituate (photo by Jeffrey Offermann).
Birders in Massachusetts and New England have been anticipating a first record of Limpkin for years as nearby states and provinces have seen increasing visits from this southeastern specialty. On Sunday, it finally happened when Jess Maguire discovered one wandering around a residential neighborhood in Scituate.
Word spread quickly via GroupMe, Discord and eBird and by the afternoon of December 1, dozens of birders had gone to see it pulling up lawn grubs between houses. Interestingly, as has been noted on several eBird checklists, this bird is only a few miles away from where the state’s second Roseate Spoonbill spent several days in October.
Accepted records of Limpkin in eBird from 2017 to 2025.
While this will be the first Limpkin considered by the MARC, 19 state and provincial records committees have reviewed and accepted their first Limpkin since 2017¹, as discussed in this recent paper about Limpkin vagrancy patterns published in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology in July.
¹Mutchler, M. J., Nemecek, M. S., & Robbins, M. B. (2025). Patterns and demography of Limpkin (Aramus guarauna) vagrancy in the 21st century United States. The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, 137(4), 563–577. https://doi.org/10.1080/15594491.2025.2529110