A bird that had been seen in Missouri just twice before was spotted last week at Stockton Lake.
The Missouri Department of Conservation said Betty Daniel of Carl Junction was crappie fishing on the Big Sac arm of the lake with her husband Ron when they looked up and saw a large bird. Betty, who said she has her camera with her wherever she goes, photographed the bird, thinking at first that it was a bald eagle, "until I seen the split tail, and it was like, 'woah, wait a minute. What is that?' "
She said a bald eagle flew in, and "I kept on clicking, you know, just kept on taking pictures, and watching it, you know, when it was flying with the eagle. It was amazing to see that."
She posted the photo to Facebook, and a friend told her, after consulting her bird field guide, that she thought it was a magnificent frigatebird. Another Facebook friend told her the same thing.
Ron reached out to a conservation agent that he knew who forwarded the photos to MDC biologists.
An MDC staff member confirmed that the bird Betty photographed was indeed a magnificent frigatebird, which are usually nowhere near Missouri. The sea birds can be found along the coast in the southern U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean.
MDC biologists said the one spotted at Stockon Lake was an adult female. They think it could have been a delayed displacement from a recent hurricane.
The Daniels returned to the lake the next day, but after fishing for three hours, they didn't see the magnificent frigatebird again.
When told that avid birders were probably jealous, Betty replied laughing, "probably, and I didn't even know what I was looking at."
