A European starling showed up in John Noksana's yard in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., on May 11.
© John NoksanaA European starling showed up in John Noksana's yard in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., on May 11.
A bird that's common in southern Canada but rarely seen in the Arctic showed up in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., last week.

It was May 11 around 9:30 a.m. and John Noksana and his wife were having coffee, about to get ready to go goose hunting, when she pointed the bird out to him.

"It was a black bird, maybe a little bigger than a robin. It had a yellow beak, pretty sharp claws for a small bird, I noticed, and silver wings," he said.

"I'd never seen a bird like that in my life."

It hung around in their yard for three or four minutes — long enough for Noksana to snap four or five photos — then it took off.

He posted his photos on Facebook and asked his friends if anybody knew what it was. Many guessed it was a European starling, also known as the common starling.

"I Googled it and found out they were released in New York in a park [in 1890], like about 100 birds, and now there are a couple hundred thousand I guess or maybe more.

"Then I checked the range and they do come into the territory but just above Yellowknife, just in that area, maybe not even that."

N.W.T. biologists have confirmed the bird in the photos is a European starling. Sightings of the species have been reported before in the Beaufort Delta region, but are rare.