While by no means rare, a highlight for us this week was this Great Blue Heron stalking our pond in our Durham yard. It’s exciting to see the ecosystem we built here in less than a year! I’ve noticed a lot of Great Blue Herons undergoing post-breeding dispersal over the past week.
How is it that when you go away for a week, you fall three weeks behind? I’ve never understood that marvel of the universe. Anyway, catching up from our trip resulted in minimal birding for me over these last 6 days. However, a couple of highlights included the following:
- Red Crossbills continue on the coastal plain. My high count this week were 7 flying over our yard on 8/1.
- 1 House Wren, our property in Durham, 8/1 to present (our 140th Yard Bird!).
- 1 RED-NECKED GREBE and 11 Piping Plovers, Popham State Park, Phippsburg, 8/3.
- Oddly, a Black-billed Cuckoo was singing loudly at around 11pm on the night of the 3rd in our yard in Durham.
TOURS and EVENTS
- Speaking of catching up, here’s (finally) my tour report from our July 22nd trip out to Seal Island.
And while observations were minimal this week, we do have a few events coming up that were worth posting.
- The first is our Birds of Casco Bay: “Shorebird Special” coming up this Sunday. Due to a recent cancellation, there are now two spaces available.
- Then, we have our Bird Safe Open House event on 8/19, with everything from a birdwalk to a keynote speaker. No registration is necessary, but this is a good way to keep in touch. Note the Saturday Morning Birdwalk that week meets in Durham at 9:00am.
- And finally, we have a special event at the store on 8/24 featuring Maine Authors Paul Doiron and Ron Joseph. You won’t want to miss this one!
Maine Birding Field Notes 