Despite being focuses on shorebirds this week, my most productive photo session were with Roseate Terns on Hill’s Beach on 7/30. This was my favorite shot, of a juvenile still hungry while its banded parent went out in search of more fish.

Shorebird season is in full swing, and since our return from our summer vacation, shorebirds have been my birding focus. As I often do at this time of year, I like to organize my weekly (or thereabouts) observations into a “high counts for the week” summary. This is really for my own organization of notes and allows me to quickly evaluate ebbs and flows across the summer, and across various years. To get a good sample, I need to hit at least one high tide and one low tide hotspot each week, along with one “grasspiper spot,” freshwater location, and “local hotspot.” I never accomplished that in any period in July before our trip, so I will start that pursuit this week. I hope you too find values from these brief syntheses.

This week’s non-shorebird highlights:

• 1 White-throated Sparrow, our property in Durham, 7/29. They don’t breed withing several miles of the property, and this was our first summer record. It was a molting adult. I think short-distance “molt migration” in songbirds of the Eastern Forest is under-appreciated (see, for example, recent spate of boreal warblers on offshore seabird islands).

• 1 1^st-summer Lesser Black-backed Gull, Hill’s Beach, Biddeford, 7/30.

• 1 Black and at least 23 Surf Scoters, Wharton Point, Brunswick, 8/4.

Shorebird high counts this week:

• AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER: 3, Hill’s Beach, Biddeford, 7/30. Plus 1 at Pine Point on 8/1.
• Black-bellied Plover: 44, Wharton Point, Brunswick, 8/4.
• Killdeer: 32, Crystal Spring Farm, Brunswick, 8/4.
• Semipalmated Plover: 343, Pine Point, Scarborough, 8/1.
• Piping Plover: 6, Biddeford Pool Beach, Biddeford, 7/30.
• Whimbrel: 3, Pine Point, 8/1.
• Ruddy Turnstone: 11, Hill’s Beach, 7/30.
• Sanderling: 8, Hill’s Beach, 7/30.
• Least Sandpiper: 40+, Eastern Road Trail, Scarborough Marsh, 8/1.
• Pectoral Sandpiper: 1, several locations this week.
• Semipalmated Sandpiper: 800+, The Pool, Biddeford Pool, 7/30.
• Short-billed Dowitcher: 88, Hill’s Beach, 7/30.
• Spotted Sandpiper: 3, Eastern Road Trail, 8/1.
• Solitary Sandpiper: 1, our property in Durham, 7/29.
• Lesser Yellowlegs: 61, Walsh Preserve, Freeport, 8/1.
• “Eastern” Willet: 64, The Pool, 7/30.
• Greater Yellowlegs: 28, Walsh Preserve, 8/1.

Tours and Events:

• A couple of spots have opened up for next Sunday’s “Birds on Tap – Roadtrip! Shorebirds and Steins” visiting Scarborough Marsh and two Greater Portland-area craft breweries.
• The 20^th Anniversary Celebration Month has begun here at the store.  All the details can be found here, including free raffles for dinner, a silent auction for conservation, and several chances to win a new pair of binoculars!
• Birds of Casco Bay with Seacoast Tours, originally scheduled for this morning, has been postponed until Sunday, 8/25. Call Seacoast Tours to see if any cancellations have opened up any spaces.