Figure 82. Once it found Sweetwater Reservoir in San Diego County, the state’s second Anhinga seemed reluctant to leave. This widely seen adult female, photographed in February 1977, was last seen there on 20 January 1979 (1977-003; Robert Copper).

 

 

 

 

 

ANHINGA Anhinga anhinga (Linnaeus, 1766)

Accepted: 5 (38%)	Treated in Appendix H: yes
Not accepted: 8	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 1	Color image: none

This darter inhabits fresh, shallow, inland waters and vegetated lagoons, and ranges from southern Virginia southward along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts to Central and South America. Only the northernmost birds are considered migratory, and individuals have strayed widely across the East as far north as Ontario. The species occurs regularly along Mexico’s Pacific coast north to central Sonora (Russell and Monson 1998). Several birds have been found in New Mexico, and Arizona and Colorado each claim single September specimens.

California’s first acceptable record of the Anhinga refers to an adult male present 2 June–16 July 1939 at Lake Merced in San Francisco County (Bolander 1939, Gull 21:81). An earlier report from Potholes (=Laguna Dam), Imperial County, 9–12 February 1913 (Brooks 1913, Dawson 1916, Dawson 1923:1936) may have been correct, but the details are too sparse to be acceptable (Roberson 1986). The first three CBRC-endorsed records involve birds that lingered on lakes on the coastal slope, raising concerns about their provenance (see Grinnell and Miller 1944:558, Garrett and Dunn 1981:380). The two subsequent records pertain to birds found in Imperial County that remained less than three months (but see Appendix H).

Observers should be aware that various exotic darters—particularly the African Darter (A. melanogaster rufa)—are common in captivity and could easily be mistaken for an Anhinga (see Figure 322 on page 278). Consider, for example, the September 1927 Anhinga specimen from Aurora, Colorado (DMNH 12296), which was long treated as A. anhinga (e.g., Bailey and Niedrach 1965:92) until the late Allan R. Phillips reidentified it as A. m. novaehollandiae of Australasia—and thus an escapee (Andrews and Righter 1992:14). An Anhinga reported at Finney Lake, Imperial County, proved to be an African Darter (see records not accepted and the Darter account in the hypothetical section). More recently, exotic darters have been recorded in San Diego County (Unitt 2004) and Ensenada, Baja California (NAB 56:111).

 

[DARTER Anhinga melanogaster Pennant, 1769 – see hypothetical section]