Hundreds of emotional bird lovers flocked to NY home to see rare lazuli bunting: ‘Birdwatcher’s bucket list’

There was a lot to chirp about in this Long Island town.

A lazuli bunting, known for living on the West Coast, visited the bird feeder at Meigan Madden Rocco’s Flanders, Long Island home to the pleasant surprise of bird lovers near and far.

Hundreds of visitors, from Connecticut, New Jersey and even Buffalo and Ithaca, flocked there to see the blue songbird, which is a rarity in the Northeast and has only been spotted in New York once before, in 1998.

“There were people that would see this bird and start crying,” Rocco told The Post.

“They were praying, hugging each other, high-fiving when the bird would come. This is apparently on every birdwatcher’s bucket list.”

The creature first made an appearance on April 18 and returned every day until Monday, once an hour.

“That’s pretty much what they do during any migration, but especially such a long one. They’ll stop along the route and fill up and fuel themselves for the next leg,” she explained.

“And according to the bird experts I’ve spoken to, they said that Monday night’s conditions were prime for the birds to migrate and there were a lot of birds flying that night.”

When Rocco first saw the bird outside, she took its picture and sent it to her friend, a former wildlife officer at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

“She texted me back almost immediately and said, ‘I think that’s a lazuli bunting, but the location makes no sense.'”

When her friend confirmed it was in fact a lazuli bunting, she reported it as a rare bird sighting on the database eBird and even added its photo to the Facebook group New State Rare Bird Alert.

“I had no idea what was in store because then within probably three or four hours, I started getting text messages, emails, some people called me,” she said.

Spectators wanted to repay Rocco for the once-in-a-lifetime sighting, so she asked them to donate to the Southampton Animal Shelter.

“They called me yesterday and a week later, they’re still trying to get through all the donations,” she said.

She said it didn’t bother her to have so many unexpected visitors.

“I didn’t mind at all because I really enjoyed watching the people and their reactions. But it was definitely different getting up in the morning and having binoculars and camera lens pointing in my kitchen window,” she said, laughing.