This Week’s Highlights, 4/12-4/18/2025.

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This immature Snow Goose was a surprise to find in the marsh off of the Footbridge Beach Parking lot in Ogunquit on the 15th. Later, my client and I found it much closer (although heat shimmer and distance still confounded my phone-scoping attempts) off of the North Beach parking lot across the river.

After another complex and long-duration storm system put the brakes on migration from Friday night through Tuesday, there was a huge flight of birds into the area for Wednesday morning and a great hawk flight on Friday.  Here are my observations of note and new arrivals over the past seven days:

  • Our last Fox Sparrow at our home and here at the store departed the night of 4/15. Not seeing one on the 16th anywhere ended my streak of 120 consecutive days of seeing a Fox Sparrow when in Maine! Of course on appeared/reappeared at home on the 17th.
  • A sparrow fallout was experienced along the immediate southwestern coast of Maine on the morning of 4/15. I caught a small sample of it with 50-75 Savannah Sparrows, 150+ Dark-eyed Juncos, 30+ Song Sparrows, 1 Fox Sparrow, etc, at Beach Plum Farm in Ogunquit (with a client from New York).
  • 7 Harlequin Ducks and 12 Purple Sandpipers, Perkin’s Cove, Ogunquit, 4/15 (with client from New York).
  • 1 immature SNOW GOOSE, Footbridge Beach parking lot, Ogunquit, 4/15 (with client from New York). Relocated later from the North Beach parking lot. Photo above.
  • The large rafts of several hundred (mostly) Greater and (at least a few) Lesser Scaup, along with White-winged Scoters, continues this week at Wharton Point in Brunswick, at least through 4/17.

My personal “first of years” this week also included:

  • 2 Palm Warblers, our property in Durham, 4/13.
  • 10 Broad-winged Hawks, Bradbury Mountain Spring Hawkwatch, 4/16.
  • 3 Yellow-rumped Warbler (FOS), Florida Lake Park, Freeport, 4/17.
  • 1 Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Florida Lake Park, 4/17.

Bradbury Mountain Spring Hawkwatch

The Week 4 report can be found here.

Upcoming Tours (with Space Available):

  1. Birds on Tap Roadtrip – Warbler and Wort. Thursday, May 8

    Evergreen Cemetery, Capisic Pond Park, Orange Bike Brewing and TBA with our partners Portland Explorer (formerly Maine Brews Cruise).

    2. Field Identification and Natural History of Birds: Spring Migration at Eagle Hill Institute.

    A week-long immersive skill-building seminar for beginning and intermediate birders based in Steuben.

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