The Far End of the Probability Curve: A Hoopoe in Alaska

The story ends with a rather terse note in the July 1977 issue of The Auk, page 601:

© The Auk, July 1977, page 601

And then there’s the physical evidence: a study skin in a drawer at the University of Alaska Museum of the North.

Eurasian Hoopoe in a Drawer, University of Alaska Muesum

Eurasian Hoopoe Skin Acquired 3 Sep 1975, University of Alaska Museum

Eurasian Hoopoe Head Detail

The story begins with a Eurasian Hoopoe, an Asian species, seen near Old Chevak, in the Yukon Delta.

It’s the story that’s in between that’s interesting.

For years, there have been wild tales about how the Eurasian Hoopoe was found, how the Hoopoe was “collected,” and how the study skin ended up at the UA Museum. A Hoopoe, after all, is an Asian bird, possibly the single member of an Old World order, Upupidae. The bird appears in the Qur’an, and is the national bird of Israel. The probability that one would turn up in Alaska is so low that it’s a waste of time even thinking about it.

Except that one did.

The note’s co-author, Yu’pik Native Jack Paniyak, died in May 2005. But a legend has grown up around his discovery of the bird. As one of his nephews tells the story, on September 2, 1975, Paniyak called the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Bethel, Alaska. It would have been no trivial or inexpensive task to make a phone call from Chevak in 1975. According to the nephew, Paniyak told a biologist in Bethel, “I’ve got this weird bird hanging around; it hangs upside down, it runs along the ground and it’s got a crest and really weird colors.” The anonymous biologist on the other end of the line, the story goes, basically told Paniyak to call back when he was sober.

The next day, Paniyak called USF&WS again. “That bird’s back. I’ve been through a bird book and it’s not in it. I think you should come see it.” Once again, the biologist essentially ignored Paniyak, and told him to stop bothering USF&WS.

A few days later, as the legend has it, Paniyak was in Bethel at at USF&WS’s refuge office. He was carrying a sack. In the sack was a dead bird. Paniyak figured the bird was never going to survive or breed, so he shot it. That, the legend goes, was Alaska’s one and only Hoopoe. A bird more than a really, really long ways out of its usual range.

That’s the birding legend, anyway. The true story, alas, turns out to be much more prosaic.

As Chris Dau, the note’s other co-author, tells it, Paniyak had a fish camp not far from the seasonal USF&WS field station in Old Chevak, out at the edge of the Yukon Delta. Paniyak told the researchers at the USF&WS field camp about his weird bird. The researchers and Paniyk made an unsuccessful effort to find the bird, and ended up telling Paniyak that if he saw it again to collect it. Paniyak did see it again. There was one possible witness WC has not been able to interview, Dr. Margaret Peterson. But Paniyak did as instructed, and shot – “collected” – the bird. Dau, in his phrase, didn’t see it alive but saw it while it was still warm.

The birding legend makes a great story but, alas, appears to be just that: a birding legend.

(Birdwatcher and Northwest Magazine columnist Virginia Holmgren could not resist a snarky comment two years later in her essay, “Shout Whoopee If You Spot a Hoopoe,” noting we might see another one some day “if it isn’t collected for a museum specimen like the first…”)

Anyway, that’s why the Checklist of Alaska Birds has the Eurasian Hoopoe as one of the 487 naturally-occurring species in Alaska.

When they are alive, they look something like this:

Have You Seen This Bird? Photo by Dûrzan cîrano, via Wiki Commons

A pretty amazing bird, don’t you agree? The chances of ever seeing such a bird in North America again are pretty close to zero. That doesn’t stop birders from dreaming, of course. Or putting their dreams on vanity license plates.

© Richard Ditch, Used with Permission

© Richard Ditch, Used with Permission

The Hoopoe may be at the far end of the probability curve, but hey, that same probability curve says it could happen again.

(WC’s thanks to the Dr. Kevin Winker and Jack Withrow at the University of Alaska Museum of the North for letting him photograph the skin. WC’s thanks to the extended Paniyak family for their version of the tale. WC’s special thanks to Christopher Dau for the interview and the copy of the Northwest News article. Finally, thanks to Richard Ditch for letting WC borrow part of his awesome birder license plate collection.)