Laura Erickson's For the Birds

This spectacular East Asian duck belongs to the same genus as North America’s Wood Duck. A free-flying feral population of several hundred mandarins exist in Sonoma County, California, the result of several ducks escaping from captivity, then reproducing in the wild. Despite that, they aren’t considered “countable” in the ABA area (the United States and Canada) for birders. Because of that, I had this one on my eBird list for 2013—my “Big Year”—but not on my ABA list for the year.