Songbird draws crowds to western Ohio

ROCKFORD, Ohio (AP) — A rare bird hardly ever seen in Ohio is drawing a crowd.

About 40 people, some from as far away as Michigan, flocked to a farm field near the western Ohio village of Rockford over the weekend in hopes of spotting a sparrow-sized Smith’s Longspur, a brightly patterned songbird that spends its summers in the subarctic tundra.

Farm owner Jan Figley saidthe birdwatchers, armed with binoculars and spotting scopes, lined up on a road next to a field of corn stubble.

Figley said Web sites frequented by birders alerted bird enthusiasts to the site.

Beth Sharlow, who drove down from outside Detroit, saidthe Smith’s Longspur spends the winter in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas. She said that in the spring they migrate to Canada.