Tag Archives: birding

Recent Highlights, 8/12 – 8/18/2024

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Far from being my best shot of the week, our Saturday Morning Birdwalk group enjoyed 2 Stilt Sandpipers at Freeport’s Walsh Preserve. Here’s one of them (pardon the lousy hand-held phone-scoped photo) flanked by Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs for a perfect comparison. Instructional shorebird identification was the name of the game for my tours this week!

Two shorebird-focused tours, plus a few mornings out on beach/mud on my own produced some solid shorebird high counts. My species list and a few high counts would have been added were in not for the rapidly-approaching thunderstorm as my Shorebird Workshop group arrived at Hill’s Beach on the 15th!  Landbird migration is really picking up as well, with lots of the expected early warblers on the move, including a Cape May Warbler at the Walsh Preserve in Freeport (with Saturday Morning Birdwalk group) on the 17th.

Non-shorebird observations of note this week:

  • 28+ continuing Surf Scoters, Wharton Point, Brunswick, 8/12.
  • 2 Common Nighthawks (First of fall), over our property in Durham, 8/13.
  • 2 adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Pine Point, Scarborough, 8/15 (with Down East Adventures Shorebird Workshop tour group).
  • 6 Surf Scoters, Popham Beach State Park, Phippsburg, 8/16.

Shorebird high counts this week:

  • Black-bellied Plover: 91, Wharton Point, Brunswick, 8/12 (with Jeannette).
  • Killdeer: 35, Crystal Spring Farm, Brunswick, 8/12 (with Jeannette).
  • Semipalmated Plover: ~300, Pine Point, Scarborough, 8/15 (with Down East Adventures Shorebird Workshop tour group).
  • Ruddy Turnstone: 35, Biddeford Pool Beach, Biddeford, 8/15 (with Down East Adventures Shorebird Workshop tour group).
  • STILT SANDPIPER: 2 adults, Walsh Preserve, Freeport, 8/17 (horrible photo above; with Saturday Morning Birdwalk group).
  • Sanderling: 13, Popham Beach State Park, 8/16.
  • Least Sandpiper: 20+, Great Pond, Biddeford Pool, 8/15 (with Down East Adventures Shorebird Workshop tour group).
  • White-rumped Sandpiper: 12, Pine Point, 8/15 (with Down East Adventures Shorebird Workshop tour group).
  • Semipalmated Sandpiper: ~1750, Biddeford Pool Beach, 8/15 (with Down East Adventures Shorebird Workshop tour group). Honorable mention of ~1200 at Pine Point on 8/15 (with Down East Adventures Shorebird Workshop tour group).
  • Short-billed Dowitcher: 8, Popham Beach State Park, 8/16.
  • Spotted Sandpiper: 2, multiple locations this week.
  • Solitary Sandpiper: 2, Walsh Preserve, 8/17 (with Saturday Morning Birdwalk group).
  • Lesser Yellowlegs: 54, Walsh Preserve, 8/17 (with Saturday Morning Birdwalk group).
  • “Eastern” Willet: 14, Pine Point, 8/15 (with Down East Adventures Shorebird Workshop tour group).
  • Greater Yellowlegs: 41, Wharton Point, 8/13 (with Jeannette).

Tours and Events:

The 20th Anniversary Celebration Month is underway here at the store.  All the details can be found here, including a silent auction for conservation, and several chances to win a new pair of binoculars!

Recent Highlights, 7/3 – 7/9/2024

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Jeannette and I spent a few days last week again assisting Dr. Adrienne Leppold of Maine IF&W with a project to put radio transmitters on Wood Thrushes, a species that is declining dramatically throughout its range. This one was particularly feisty, especially for a thrush!

Although breeding season is in full swing locally, it’s already “fall” for a number of species. Swallows are aggregating and some are heading south, some early and failed nesters are already departing, and the first wave of southbound shorebirds have now arrived!  My observations of note over the past seven days including the following:

  • Cuckoos became more vocally-conspicuous as they usually do this time of year along the coastal plain, including a daily Black-billed in our Durham yard and 2-3 Yellow-billed at Suckfish Brook Conservation area in Falmouth on 7/8 (with Jeannette).
  • 1 fresh juvenile Ring-billed Gull, Auburn Riverwalk, Auburn, 7/5 (seems really early to have one so far away from a breeding lake).
  • 1 female ORCHARD ORIOLE, Old Town House Park, North Yarmouth, 7/6 (with Saturday Morning Birdwalk group).
  • 1 Least Sandpiper (first southbound shorebird migrant of fall!), Green Point WMA, 7/7.
  • 2 AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHERS, Pine Point, Scarborough, 7/9.
  • 9 Lesser Yellowlegs (first of fall), 4 Greater Yellowlegs, and a smattering of Least Sandpipers, Pelreco Marsh, Scarborough Marsh, 7/9.

Tours and Events:

  • Please join me in Jay on Thursday at 4pm as I give a presentation and answer questions about Birdwatching in Maine: The Complete Site Guide at the Jay-Niles Memorial Library. Free and open to the public.
Adult Summer Reading Program-Birdwatching in Maine: The Complete Site Guide (Visit with Derek J. Lovitch, editor)
  • There will not be a Saturday Morning Birdwalk on either 7/13 or 7/27.

This Week’s Highlights, 7/8-14,2023

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If I only saw one bird all week, and it was THIS bird, I would have been more than satisfied. The near-mythological Tufted Puffin that has wandered around the Gulf of Maine for the last two summers finally was in front of my binoculars at Eastern Egg Rock on 7/10 (with Cap’n Fish’s Cruises “Audubon Puffin and Scenic Cruise). Unfortunately, it was not seen a mere three hours later when I returned to the island with my previously-scheduled Mini-Pelagic with our partners at Cap’n Fish’s.

While just about anything else would pale in comparison, I did have several other observations of note over the past seven days, plus lots of quality time with Roseate Terns, Salmarsh and Nelson’s Sparrows, etc:

  • Scarborough Marsh migrant shorebirds, 7/9 (with Ken Mettie and Mary Beth Oles): 16 Short-billed Dowitchers (First of fall), 4-6 Lesser Yellowlegs, 4 Least Sandpipers (FOF), and 2 Greater Yellowlegs.
  • Freeport Wild Bird Supply’s “Puffin/Whale Combo Mini-Pelagic” with Cap’n Fish’s Cruises, 7/10: 1 COMMON MURRE and 1 American Oystercatcher at Eastern Egg Rock. Offshore pelagic visitors: 100-150 Wilson’s Storm-Petrels, 2 Great Shearwaters, 2 unidentified shearwaters, 1 Sooty Shearwater, 1 subadult PARASITIC JAEGER. Some observers had a MANX SHEARWATER as well.
  • 1 LOUSIANA WATERTHRUSH and 1 Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Morgan Meadow WMA, 7/11 (with Jeannette).
  • Scarborough Marsh and Pine Point migrant shorebird totals, 7/14 (with Alec Humann and Buffalo Ornithological Society tour group): 18 Short-billed Dowitchers, 15 Lesser Yellowlegs, 12 Least Sandpipers, 5 Semipalmated Sandpipers (FOF), 2 Whimbrel (FOF, Jones Creek, Pine Point), and 1 Greater Yellowlegs.