USGS study of the right migratory bird and genetic tracking of avian influenza viral makeup indicates potential pandemic strain might reach the US.

Pintail ducks were the study species yielding evidence contradicting earlier more reassuring work on other species. See here and here.

No complete genetically identical virus was found, but

Released: 10/27/2008 11:49:09 AM
In an article published this week in Molecular Ecology, USGS scientists observed that nearly half of the low pathogenic avian influenza viruses found in wild northern pintail ducks in Alaska contained at least one (of eight) gene segments that were more closely related to Asian than to North American strains of avian influenza.