It’s that time of the year again! Time for me to look into my birding crystal ball, and make random guesses…err, insightful, educated, prognostications about what the next year will bring to Maine and birders’ state lists.

But first, let’s, as usual, review the previous year. For the full list of 2014 species predictions, you can visit my blog from last January here.

Two species were added to Maine’s all-time list in 2014, a Brewer’s Sparrow on Monhegan in May, and a Crested Caracara in Unity (and later in Norridgewock) in August. While both species were on my “long list” for future additions, neither made the top 25. Following the report in the spring of 2014 of a Crested Caracara in New Brunswick (the 2013 caracara in Nova Scotia – and NJ – was apparently not a fluke…albeit distinctly possible to have been the same individual), there’s little doubt Crested Caracara would have made it onto the list this year. But I don’t update the list as the year progresses, so alas, no credit for me.

Meanwhile, perhaps even more remarkable, was the Tufted Puffin seen sporadically off of Machias Seal Island in June and July. Without getting into geopolitical boundary disputes, I believe both Maine (waters to south and east of island at least) and New Brunswick (definitely when it was on land) can claim this bird. While the puffin was not technically new for Maine, it was the first record – and unequivocal record – since a somewhat-disputed record claimed by Audubon in 1834.

Next, I would like to call attention to #23 – Bermuda Petrel, an annual species that is on my list, but this is the lowest it has appeared. However, it very already occurred in Maine. Geolocator (“data-loggers”)data from researchers puts the birds well into the Gulf of Maine, and even within the margin of error, perhaps several birds have appeared within the usual boundaries association with state bird lists (it is well beyond the 3 mile political zone).

“Conservation and At-Sea Range of Bermuda Petrel” by Jeremy Madeiros, Bob Flood, and Kirk Zufelt in the June-July 2014 issue of North American Birds (V.67, no. 4) includes a map (p.555) of hundreds of locations from around the Atlantic Basin, including about a half-dozen within the Gulf of Maine.

(Members of the American Birding Association can read the article in its entirety here)

Whether or not we “believe” geolocators are accurate enough to document an occurrence is a discussion for another time, but I predict a bird will be seen or confidently tracked into nearby waters in the future. Therefore, that species has moved up the list. Neotropic Cormorant’s continued increase to the north and east, with increasing frequency of vagrants, bumps that species up quite a bit as well. I shuffled things around near the end as well, including replacing Yellow-legged Gull with Black-tailed Godwit

Otherwise, I have made few changes to my list of the next 25 species to appear in Maine:
1) California Gull
2) Graylag Goose
3) Neotropic Cormorant
4) Roseate Spoonbill
5) Ross’s Gull
6) Fieldfare
7) Hammond’s Flycatcher
8) Bermuda Petrel
9) Black-chinned Hummingbird
10) Spotted Towhee
11) Audubon’s Shearwater (on “hypothetical” list, but I think the record is a good one)
12) Little Stint
13) Anna’s Hummingbird
14) Redwing
15) Barolo Shearwater
16) Allen’s Hummingbird
17) Black-tailed Gull
18) Common Ground-Dove
19) Western Wood-Pewee
20) Spotted Redshank
21) Gray Flycatcher
22) Black-tailed Godwit
23) Brown-chested Martin
24) Long-billed Murrelet
25) Common Scoter

Personally, I added two species to my own “State List” this year, the Brewer’s Sparrow (not on my predictions list) during my MonhegZen Spring Migration Weekend:

And, on the MonhegZen Fall Migration Weekend, I finally added Yellow-headed Blackbird to my state list (after moving it out if the top 10 for the first year, dropping it all the way down to #24 for some reason – probably out of frustration about still not having seen one…it worked!)

(And yes, this is why birders go to Monhegan Island!)

Once again, I didn’t make it up north to look for American Three-toed Woodpeckers (#2), which were again reliable near Baxter State Park, and despite Great Skua (#3) being seen regularly off of Bar Harbor this summer, I only made it offshore on a whale watch there once in October – on a skua-free day. I did not see the reported Western Grebe (#9) off of Harpswell last week, and I missed the Crested Caracara three times! I also did not chase a Tundra Swan (#12) in Winterport in October, or a Virginia’s Warbler (long list) on Monhegan. I also did not see a Cerulean Warbler (long list) that was on Monhegan this fall as well.

So, without any further ado, here are my predictions for the next 25 species to be added to my personal list here in Maine (with quite a bit of reshuffling this year):
1) American Three-toed Woodpecker
2) Great Skua
3) Eurasian Collared-Dove
4) Slaty-backed Gull
5) Gyrfalcon
6) Graylag Goose
7) Say’s Phoebe
8) Western Grebe
9) American White Pelican
10) Boreal Owl
11) Fork-tailed Flycatcher
12) Tundra Swan
13) Yellow Rail
14) Sabine’s Gull
15) Franklin’s Gull
16) Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
17) California Gull
18) Ivory Gull
19) Calliope Hummingbird
20) Cerulean Warbler
21) White Ibis
22) Gull-billed Tern
23) Hammond’s Flycatcher
24) Loggerhead Shrike
25) Neotropic Cormorant

So there it is, the annual list. Now, it’s time to go birding!