Trinidad birding hobbyist captures rare snakebird, possibly state record

Michelle Brunelli Huffman, a Trinidad business owner who started birding about six months ago, documented a rare tropical snakebird that could become Colorado’s fifth accepted anhinga record. The sighting matters because anhingas are normally tied to warm, humid places such as Florida, the Gulf Coast, Mexico, northern South America and Central America, not the high-desert country around Trinidad.

If accepted, the bird would add a new entry to a Colorado record that dates to 1927. The Colorado Bird Records Committee lists four accepted anhinga records in the state: 1927 near Aurora in Adams County, 1931 along Coal Creek in Broomfield and Adams counties, 2003 at Barr Lake State Park in Adams County, and 2025 on 95th Street in Boulder County.

That Boulder bird helped set the benchmark for how rare the species remains here. Colorado birders described it as only the fourth record in state history and the first chaseable anhinga in Colorado, meaning it stayed long enough for others to find it. The Trinidad sighting now sits in that same narrow lane of state bird history.

Ornithologists have pointed to several possible explanations for the occasional appearance of anhinga in Colorado. A big storm can push a bird far off course, migration errors can send one inland, and broader changes in bird behavior or environmental conditions may also play a role. Scott Taylor said the closest breeding colony is in Oklahoma at the Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge.

Huffman’s connection to Trinidad gives the observation a local anchor beyond the rarity of the bird itself. She is linked to Xtreme Clean, a Colorado domestic LLC filed Sept. 10, 2019, with a Trinidad-area principal address. In a city and county more often in the news for government fights, fire, drought or crime, the sighting shows how a careful look at a pond or open patch of water can put Las Animas County into the scientific record.

What happens next will depend on verification and whether more unusual birds turn up in southern Colorado. Local birders and land managers will be watching for repeat sightings, especially after major weather events or during migration periods, because the next tropical stray could arrive the same way this one did, by accident and then by chance, in a place where few expected to find it.