An Asian eagle has shown up in Canada, half a world away

How did an Asian eagle end up in eastern Canada?

Birders have been, well, flocking to see a Steller’s sea eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus) as it made its way across North America, from Alaska’s Denali Highway to Quebec, New Brunswick and on to Nova Scotia. Birders believe it even made a stop in South Texas last spring.

At about 4,700 miles away from its usual range, “it’s almost as far away from your origin as you can be,” Andrew Farnsworth, a senior researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, told the New York Times. “It’s mind-boggling.”

The birds are known to occupy a range that includes China, Japan, Korea and Russia’s east coast, and while some have been spotted in western Alaska, the Times writes, they have never been spotted on near the Atlantic Ocean.

Read more from the New York Times.