A highlight of a slow weekend on Monhegan were the conspicuous Cape May Warblers, including these two that were regulars in a single tree that often featured every plumage aspect of this delightful warbler.
Following three days on Monhegan, I mostly birded the yard before heading back to the island for another tour.
Monhegan Island, 9/23-25 (with Down East Adventures Monhegan Migration Workshop group):
About as slow as I have ever experienced the island, even considering a nice little influx of birds on our last morning. Cape May Warblers were the most common warbler for the first two days, however, but overall numbers and diversity were extremely low. Highlights were few, but a brief trip report is posted here:
There were more birds in our yard than on Monhegan this week! A particularly active morning on 9/27 included tardy Ovenbird, Scarlet Tanager, 8 species of warblers including Tennessee and Cape May, a nice influx of sparrows including 4+ Lincoln’s, and my first 4 southern Maine Pine Siskins of the season.
A NOTE ABOUT YOUR “SLOW” BIRD FEEDERS:
Many folks have been reporting extremely slow feeders throughout much of the state recently. This happens on a regular basis, so the end is not near! In fact, a very similiar dearth of birds happened in the falls of 2017 and 2019. I’m currently working on a blog that is more specific to this year, but this blog written in 2017 nicely tells a good part of the story.
This presumed first-fall female Cape May Warbler was a good study in comparison with the other, brighter plumages of this species on display in that single tree on Monhegan.
This delightful Black-and-white Warbler hung out with me for a spell in “my office” at Sandy Point during the huge flight on the morning of the 21st.
While Hurricane Lee was a birding dud here in Maine, I did miss two great flights at Sandy Point and three overall fantastic days of migration while we were out of town. But some good migration over the past four days since our return helped make up for it. Meanwhile, I also posted a blog recounting a little about what I (did not) miss during the passage of Lee.
While there has not been a hoped-for morning flight of consequence over or through our Durham property, it continues to be much better for fall migration than we even imagined. Limited effort produced 12 species of warblers on both 9/19 and 9/22 – which included tardy Northern Waterthrush and Canada Warbler.
Sandy Point Morning Flight, 9/20.
With winds mostly westerly overnight, and very light westerly winds in the morning, the flight was lighter than I expected. It was also high and distant to the south, so I likely missed a lot of birds, and certainly identified less than I would have liked – both typical on such conditions.
6:23-9:15am
55F, mostly clear, W 2.8mph-4.1
Decreasing to WSW 0.6 to 1.9
Unidentified
164
Eastern Phoebe
2
Northern Parula
84
Eastern Bluebird
2
Blackpoll Warbler
56
DICKCISSEL
2
Cedar Waxwing
22
Bay-breasted/Blackpoll
2
Yellow Warbler
19
Osprey
1
American Redstart
12
Black-throated Blue Warbler
1
American Goldfinch
9
Red-breasted Nuthatch
1
Common Loon
5
Wilson’s Warbler
1
Red-eyed Vireo
5
Baltimore Oriole
1
Cape May Warbler
4
American Robin
1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
3
Common Yellowthroat
x
Black-and-white Warbler
3
Nashville Warbler
3
TOTAL
405
Black-throated Green Warbler
3
Horned Lark
2
Sandy Point Morning Flight, 9/21.
Wow! Although there was an absolutely huge flight overnight on the radar, the calm winds by dawn lulled me into a false sense of security. But as soon as the sun broke the horizon, birds started flowing. At first they were very high and in very large, dense aggregations, rendering identification impossible for me. Later, as the northwesterly wind picked up, many birds were considerably lower and landing in trees. Based on the date, there’s no way American Redstarts were the second most numerous warbler (they’re just easy to identify), and I would be a large proportion of those early, high migrants were strong-flying Blackpolls. But parulas definitely dominated, and at times, a dozen would be in the trees around me. Even as of 10:00am, a trickle of birds continued overhead.
6:26am to 10:26am.
51F, mostly clear, calm.
Increasing to NW 5.5-7.8mph
Unidentifed
1878
Bay-breasted Warbler
2
Northern Parula
947
Palm Warbler
2
Red-eyed Vireo
97* new record
American Goldfinch
2
American Redstart
88
Blue Jay
2
Blackpoll Warbler
74
Prairie Warbler
2
Yellow-rumped Warbler
59
Savannah Sparrow
1
Black-throated Green Warbler
53
DICKCISSEL
1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
47
CONNECTICUT WARBLER!
1 (plus one probable)
Yellow Warbler
43
Bobolink
1
Black-and-white Warbler
41
Brown Creeper
1
Cape May Warbler
16
Chestnut-sided Warbler
1
American Robin
12
American Pipit
1
Northern Flicker
11
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
1
Scarlet Tanager
10
Unidentified Empid
1
Magnolia Warbler
9
Mourning Dove
1
Black-throated Blue Warbler
8
Probable Blue-winged Warbler
1
Blue-headed Vireo
7
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
1
Swainson’s Thrush
6* including two high overhead almost an hour after sunrise!
RED-SHOULDERED HAWK
1 Juv. My 196th all-time Patch Bird!
Horned Lark
6
Sharp-shinned Hawk
1
Red-breasted Nuthatch
5
Baltimore Oriole
1
Nashville Warbler
5
House Wren
1
Common Loon
4
Common Yellowthroat
x
Eastern Phoebe
4
Philadelphia Vireo
3
American Kestrel
3
TOTAL
3,467
Rusty Blackbird
2
Golden-crowned Kinglet
2
This cooperative Prairie Warbler was one of 18 species of warblers that passed over and through Sandy Point Beach, Cousin’s Island, Yarmouth, on the morning of the 21st.
Hawkwatching over the store, 9/21! The big migration day continued, with Jeannette tallying 752 Broad-winged Hawks, 4 Bald Eagles, 3 Turkey Vultures, 2 American Kestrels, 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks, and 1 Cooper’s Hawk in just over 2 hours of observation right out our front door!
As Jeannette and I boarded our plane at the Portland Jetport on Thursday the 14th, I had a sinking feeling of future regret. While I was very much looking forward to attending my cousin’s wedding, seeing family, and spending some time in Philadelphia, I could not help but wonder if I was about to miss the birding event of a lifetime in Maine.
While concern about lives, property, and environmental damage of course reign supreme, birders can repress that as the “rarity fever” symptoms surge and dreams of vagrants and storm-tossed seabirds dance in our minds. As with any storm, safety comes first, but as soon as it’s reasonably safe to venture outside, birders hit the ground. Birders along the Gulf Coast and Florida are used to gearing up for this. We here in New England are not.
Hurricanes are rare this far north – at least for now – and few have been as big as Hurricane Lee. Lee was barreling straight for Downeast Maine as of Thursday morning, with a possible direct hit on Washington County or the Bay of Fundy. Had I not had family obligations (family first! Although, yes, I did wonder for a second if I should claim COVID and run out of the airport) I would have been heading to Lubec this weekend without a doubt. I’ve never done a bonafide storm (bird) chase, and this would be the chance.
While an upper-level trough could still push Lee well to our east, it seemed clear we would be seeing some impacts here in Maine regardless. Be that a strong northeasterly wind producing exceptional -but perhaps rarity-free seawatching – or first state records from a direct hit (White-faced Storm-Petrel anyone?), I would have liked to be in position to find out.
Instead, I’ll watch from afar as events unfold, and hope either 1) I have less regrets, or 2) a vagrant or two stick around until Tuesday!
Several friends and I had been discussing the possible rarity potential of Hurricane Lee, and Luke Seitz immediately pointed out the similarity to the track of Hurricane Fiona that slammed into eastern Nova Scotia in September of 2023.
But there are two particularly epic eBird checklists, here and here, that captured the moment.
Was this about to happen in Maine? Would I be missing it? Arrgh!
While birding at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge on the outskirts of Philly on Friday morning helped take my mind off of it, my thoughts were often wandering to my friends Downeast. First and foremost was their safety and well-being. A distant second, however, was the birding. By Saturday morning, when we took a walk around Independence National Historic Park, I waited for my phone to blow up.
And then…crickets.
Before making landfall, Hurricane Lee had transitioned to a post-tropical cyclone over the Gulf of Maine. It also had shifted slightly east – making a direct hit on Nova Scotia now seem more likely. The storm was now absolutely massive in size, with tropical storm-force winds from New Hampshire to Cape Breton. A little wobble in the stormtrack in the late morning shifted the center of the storm into the Bay of Fundy, skimming Nova Scotia’s southwest coast.
But I heard nothing from back home, so I just couldn’t take it anymore and began checking in via text messages. Chris Barlett was stationed on the seawall at Eastport, where he spent “5 hours watching the ocean…during the worst weather on Saturday in hopes of seeing just one rare bird. Torrential rain and 60mph gusts rocked my vehicle. Dozens of Bonaparte’s gulls and up to 20 common terns flew against the wind and fed in the waves beside my truck, but no rarities joined the fray. We lost power at home for about 12 hours. “
Luke and cohorts were heading east into New Brunswick. Evan Obercian was out checking for grounded shorebirds in the Mid-Coast. Nova Scotia birders were repositioning. I decided to drown my expected sorrows in cheese whiz.
With a strong northeasterly wind, seawatching along Maine’s southern coast was about average for the conditions. No rarities; just a few more pelagic species closer to shore than normal – although all within the expected birds for a good onshore blow. And while there were a few more shorebird reports inland than average, nothing was suggestive of a major grounding.
By Saturday afternoon, with the storm making its landfall Nova Scotia (officially on Long Island), a few reports started to make it in – but nothing of even a remotely tropical nature in Maine. In southern Maine and the mid-coast, winds were already whipping out of the northwest, ushering any seabirds further from shore. Seawatching was a bust. In other words, it was a non-event.
In New Brunswick, Luke reported “a few storm birds on the Saint John River in the afternoon and on Sunday Morning” but just the regular Bay of Fundy species and not in any unusual numbers, and rare bird reports from the province were non-existent.
It remained a non-event in Maine through Sunday morning. Here’s Chris’s report from Eastport: “I went back to the breakwater on Sunday morning and watched the sunrise as I scanned the waters between Campobello Island , NB and Eastport, Maine. There weren’t many birds flying and low tide was around 7am (no rips), so I decided to launch my little skiff. At 9am Doug Hitchcox and I took a cruise through choppy seas in Head Harbor Passage. We found a few hundred Bonaparte’s gulls and a handful of common terns feeding in the tidal rips but, alas, no rarities. I kept an eye out throughout the day for vagrant seabirds while I was cleaning up the yard and mowing the lawn. Oh well, at least there wasn’t widespread damage!” Seawatching elsewhere was similarly uneventful.
There weren’t even a lot of reports of concentrations of common birds during the storm. An exception was the group of 50+ Snowy Egrets seeking shelter in a small pond in Freeport.
In Nova Scotia, however, birders were finding a few things thanks to the more eastern arrival of the storm, including a couple of tropical Bridled and Sooty Terns (the expected and hoped-for low-hanging fruit of tropical waifs). A Least Tern and a Gull-billed Tern were intriguing, as Lee never skimmed a coastline where these birds would be expected to be picked up from. Leach’s Storm-Petrels were being reported from a number of locations, especially in the afternoon.
By Sunday morning, Nova Scotia birders were out in force, with seawatching being productive. “Tons” of seabirds were passing the Cape St. Mary’s lighthouse on the southwest coast of Nova Scotia according to one report, as birds were pushed up against the shoreline on that side (as opposed to Maine) by the strong westerly wind. A few Leach’s Storm-Petrels were being found, included one found grounded on a lawn in Bedford and one passing the Cape D’or lighthouse near the head of the Bay of Fundy. While I did not do an exhaustive search, displaced tropical or even true pelagic birds remained very few and very far between.
Even as of Monday, Leach’s Storm-Petrels were still being reported from the shore in Nova Scotia. A Gull-billed Tern continued in Grand Pre. So birds were definitely displaced by the storm, but they were mostly non-tropical in nature…and nothing like Fiona.
There were however, a lot of uncommon to rare passerines being reported in Nova Scotia since Sunday morning (such as a White-eyed Vireo and a Golden-winged Warbler), but without a careful analysis of radar images and broader-scale wind maps, I am unconvinced these birds were somehow entrained or displaced in the storm all the way from the open ocean south of Bermuda. Possible, for sure, but could it also have been nothing more than “detection bias” with some many birders out looking because of the hope for storm-blown vagrants? I’ll leave this debate for another time Furthermore, a little spate of “good” southern warblers on Monhegan could also be related, or it could just be Monhegan being Monhegan as usual.9/28 edit: As reports of North American passerines (aka “Yanks”) continue to pour in from Great Britian, it seems clear that Lee displaced countless numbers of Neotropical migrant songbirds. Enough that it even made the NY Times! I retract my earlier skepticsm (I wasn’t alone at least!) in being wary of this, but presumably birds were displaced ahead of and around the massive storm after encountering it as they headed south while over the open Atlantic.
But back to seabirds…Sure, some hotspots were closed or inaccessible in southern Nova Scotia during the peak of the storm, and conditions often made viewing impossible as the storm came ashore, but there were just so few sightings of note anywhere, despite the massive size of the storm. I heard little from Grand Manan, however, and observations during the storm from there would be most interesting.
While the storm was too far east to be of major consequence to Maine and New Brunswick, the lack of tropical birds in comparison to Fiona was remarkable. While every storm is different, and we’re far from understanding exactly what makes for a great birding storm, a very detailed comparison of these two systems would be a worthy endeavor.
Granted, it’s not over yet: a Brown Booby at Quaco Head in New Brunswick on the morning of the 18th could have been lingering from storm displacement, so maybe there are a few birds yet to be found. Also, the winds following the passage of the storm are perfect for producing Northern Wheatears in the following days and weeks after the storm (one was seen at Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia on the 17th), so you know I’ll be back looking…now that I am back in the state!
But in the meantime, I wanted to learn more about what happened with Lee. I reached out to my friend Meteorologist Mallory Brooke, in part to understand what happens when the tropical system undergoes its transformation to an extra-tropical, cold-core system, as happened with both Fiona and Lee: “When that (transition) happens, the core of intense wind spreads out rapidly; hence why a landfall in Nova Scotia was creating high wind in New Hampshire. In addition, the precipitation shield usually expands as well, but we didn’t see so much of that with Lee.” Lee had basically become a massive Nor’Easter.
I wondered if this transition was when we lost the entrained birds. Mallory suggested“…perhaps the timing to landfall made the difference – the transition took place very close to landfall for Lee whereas Fiona still had some distance to travel” Was this the reason for the lack of tropical rarities? Did they escape, or perhaps even perish as the eye collapsed and/or the core transition occurred? Would a close analysis, far beyond the scope of this blog, comparing the timing and location of the transition and the eye wall collapse between Lee and Fiona explain something? Was it time (or lack there of) spent in the Gulf Stream waters where the likes of White-faced Storm-Petrels reside?
In the case of Lee, the eyewall collapsed over the Gulf of Maine before landfall (at which point the eye structure had briefly returned)…perhaps if birders were in the middle of it (no thanks!) at the time we would know.
Regardless, it is interesting to speculate on what could have been. And I am sure others, especially in Nova Scotia will analyze the storm and its sightings in more detail. But it’s still worthwhile the exercise, if only to prepare for where to be when the next storm approaches. With more tropical storms expected in the Gulf of Maine due to climate change, we will have to be prepared to be in place for the next one (and I am out of cousins who are yet to be married).
So in the end, I wasn’t lamenting what I had missed. The “fear of missing out” was not realized. While I would have enjoyed the chase and collecting more “negative data,” I had no lingering regrets…except, perhaps, from all of the cheese whiz.
Thanks to Chris Bartlett, Mallory Brooke, and Luke Seitz for their assistance and insight while writing this essay.
It was a good week for Caspian Terns, and it’s always a treat to see one sitting still. This adult was on the Lubec Flats on the 4th.
A busy week of birding included our annual late summer/early fall trip to Washington County and a bunch of guiding, producing the following observations of note:
25-30 Common Nighthawks, over Chebeague Island in the mid-morning, 9/3 (with The Chebeague & Cumberland Land Trust birdwalk group).
1 juvenile LITTLE BLUE HERON, 1 CASPIAN TERN, 1 Great Egret, 5 Surf Scoters, etc, Lubec Flats, Lubec, 9/4 (with Jeannette).
A relatively slow morning in Head Harbor Passage from Eastport on 9/5 (with Beth Edmonds, Dan Nickerson, Jeannette, and friends) was most noteworthy for the continuing large numbers of COMMON MURRES. I tallied 109, but that seems very conservative. We only had 4 Razorbills and 1 adult Lesser Black-backed Gull. Quiet time with just us and a Fin Whale more than made up for it though.
The afternoon whale watch on Eastport Windjammers to the same waters that day (with Beth Edmonds, Dan Nickerson, and Jeannette) yielded an adult LITTLE GULL, 3 CASPIAN TERNS, 1 late ARCTIC TERN, 2 Great Shearwaters, etc. Incredibly experience with 2 Fin Whales, 1 Humpback Whale, and 1 Minke Whale though.
We always enjoy our quality time with Black-legged Kittiwakes in the Head Harbor Passage area at this time of year.
2 American Pipits (FOF), Sanborn Cove, Machiasport, 9/6 (with Jeannette). Interestingly, we had pipits at a number of places throughout the day, with a high count of 22 at Addison Marsh, Addison.
1 Great Egret, Addison Marsh, 9/6 (with Jeannette).
1 Great Egret, Essex Marsh, Bangor, 9/6 (with Jeannette).
High count for warbler species in our Durham backyard this week was 11 on 9/7 (with Angela Woodside).
3 adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Popham Beach State Park, Phippsburg, 9/8 (with clients from Texas).
Great whale-watching trumped the bird-watching again this week with 3 lunge-feeding Fin Whales off of Boothbay Harbor aboard Cap’n Fish’s Cruises on 9/8 (with clients from Texas). 3 RED-NECKED PHALAROPES, 1 Great Shearwater, 1 adult Lesser Black-backed Gull, 10 Wilson’s Storm-Petrels and making it back to shore before the violent thunderstorms add to the success of the trip!
Meanwhile, my shorebird high counts this week were as follows. While reduced in diversity by a lack of visitation to southern Maine shorebird hotspots, Downeast yielded some excellent numbers and I found some uncommon species in unexpected places for a goodly total of 18 species (“shorebird season” is far from over!):
AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER: 1, Popham Beach State Park, Phippsburg, 9/8 (with clients from Texas).
Ruddy Turnstone: 1, flying 10 miles off of Boothbay Harbor, 9/8 (with clients from Texas). Odd sighting of a single juvenile bird circling the boat repeatedly in hazy conditions where the mainland was not visible.
Sanderling: 24, Popham Beach State Park, 9/8 (with clients from Texas)
On July 22nd we boarded the Isle au Haut Boat Service’s The Otter for our special annual charter out of Stonington to the raucous seabird colony on Seal Island. Our partnership began while “Troppy” the world-famous Red-billed Tropicbird that called the area home for 17 years. Unfortunately, Troppy failed to appear last year, but we ran the trip anyway, and had an amazing time!
So we did it again this year. There’s just so much life out there, and it’s such an amazing place to visit, and so I needed an excuse for my annual visit. And sure, if that wily Tufted Puffin that’s been wandering the Gulf for the last two summers wants to be the new Troppy, that would be fine, too. But for now, we headed offshore with all sorts of high hopes.
As we left Stonington Harbor, the fog began to thicken, but not before we spotted a group of 15 Red-necked Phalaropes sitting on the water. Captain Tracy did a great job getting us closer, and then inching up to them when they relocated a short distance away. It’s a treat to get so close to phalaropes on the open water.
A handful of Wilson’s Storm-Petrels were bouncing around, but the action picked up as usual as we approached Saddleback Ledge Light. A 1st summer Great Cormorant was surveying the scene, and our first Atlantic Puffin circled around us for a couple of passes. After we ourselves circled the small island twice, we turned for Seal and immediately ran into dense fog that had slowly been creeping in. The tradeoff for calm waters is often fog, and it was pea soup today.
Not surprisingly, we saw little en route, but soon enough, we were out at Seal. While we heard – and even smelled – the tern colony before we could see the island, once along its shores, visibility was adequate. Arctic Terns put on a particularly good show for us, with several near the boat feeding and bathing. Arctic and Common Tern fledglings were everywhere, and we enjoyed their antics. There were plenty of Atlantic Puffins in the water and on land, including several groups that were remarkably confiding as we sided up to them in the glass-calm waters. And Black Guillemots were numerous, and very busy.
Razorbills were fledgling rapidly, so we only found two on the island, but later, we had great looks at one on the water, too.
We circled around the southern end, spending some time observing the state’s last colony of Great Cormorants (and Double-crested); nests were brimming with chicks!
We kept an eye out for migrant shorebirds in addition to the locally breeding Spotted Sandpipers, but visibility remained a challenge: 4 Short-billed Dowitchers, 3 Least Sandpipers, and some unidentified peeps was the best we could do. A Great Shearwater made a close, but brief, pass as we were on the east side of the island before vanishing back into the fog.
Somehow, it was even foggier on our way back, so seabird sightings – even with a second visit to Saddleback Ledge – were limited to just a couple more Wilson’s Storm-Petrels.
So yeah, the fog was annoying, and did impact photos and our search for the next mega-rarity. But it also produced one of the smoothest boat rides you’ll ever be on in the Gulf of Maine and yielded lots of close puffins and some great looks at phalaropes. And besides, any day birding from a boat is a good day in our book! Especially when a few days prior we thought this trip was going to be cancelled due to wind and thunderstorms.
White-winged Crossbills were amazingly abundant in Northern Aroostook County during our visit last week (see below).
Returning back from a little vacation to the crown of Maine followed by some time in New Brunswick, I apologize for the late report. Last week was a busy and productive week of birding for me, with the following observations of note.
Seal Island Tour, 7/22:
15 RED-NECKED PHALAROPES inside of Saddleback Ledge; 1 1st summer Great Cormorant, Saddleback Ledge Light; 3 Razorbills still at Seal Island; 1 Great Shearwater on trip back. Dense fog impacted our birding all day, but we had a fantastic performance from Atlantic Puffins and Arctic Terns in particular, and the fog cleared enough to enjoy the number of juvenile Great Cormorants in the growing colony on the island’s south end.
2 Red Crossbills, over our yard in Durham, 7/23. Interestingly, we didn’t have a single Red Crossbill in Aroostook County (unless they were all drowned out by all of the White-wings!). However, the Reds in our area seem to be focusing on coastal Red Spruce.
Aroostook County WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILLS, 7/24-7/27 (with Terez Fraser, John Lorence, and Jeannette). Wow, incredible! Over three days of birding from Fort Kent to Stockholm, we conservatively estimated observing about 50 per HOUR while in appropriate habitat! Our high count was 150-200 total along Square Lake Road in Sinclair on 7/26, with single flock of 70-75 individuals!
EVENING GROSBEAKS: just a couple heard here and there, including 1 on Nixon Siding Road, 7/24, 2 at Christina Reservoir, 7/26; and 2 at Square Lake Road, 7/26.
BOREAL CHICKADEES: Mostly heard, but some were unusually conspicuous, especially one (of 3) at Square Lake Road on 7/26 and 1 of 3 at Moscovic Road, Stockholm, 7/27 (all with Terez Fraser, John Lorence, and Jeannette).
Lake Josephine duck tallies (7/25 with John Lorenc and Jeannette): 125+ Gadwall (including juveniles of all ages); 1 drake American Wigeon, two family groups of Blue-winged Teal, 75+ Ring-necked Ducks, 1 American Bittern, etc. Numbers were lower when Jeannette and I visited on the 27th, likely due to Bald Eagle presence.
3 adult Bonaparte’s Gulls, Arnold Brook Beach Recreation Area, 7/25 (with John Lorenc and Jeannette).
Additional species from Square Lake Road in Stockholm on 7/26 (with John Lorenc, Terez Fraser, and Jeannette): 1 Bonaparte’s Gull, 3+ Bay-breasted Warblers, 1 Mourning Warbler, 1 Olive-sided Flycatcher, 1 Lincoln’s Sparrow, etc.
1 female American Wigeon with 10 chicks, Long Lake, St. Agatha, 7/26 (with Terez Fraser, John Lorence, and Jeannette).
3 Common Nighthawks, over St. John River at dusk, Fort Kent, 7/26 (with Terez Fraser, John Lorence, and Jeannette).
Most of the White-winged Crossbills we saw were in flight, or calling and singing in the distance. This male tee’d up nicely, albeit in unfortunate light. We also watched only one group feeding, and they appeared to be eating mostly buds of Tamarack (and maybe some young or old cones).
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.
I didn’t hit the shoreline at all this week, other than a quick jaunt to the Brunswick waterfront, so I don’t have a lot of observations of note, other than 2 Upland Sandpipers at Brunswick Landing, Brunswick, 7/1 (with Saturday Morning Birdwalk group) and continued scattered Red Crossbills.
However, bird-watching was fantastic this week overall, even if it did not produce anything out of the ordinary. From a visit with clients to Salt Bay Farm Preserve in Damariscotta on Thursday to a stroll this morning at Old Town House Park, I found plenty of entertainment in the life and antics of our common breeding species.
In fact, on a couple of mornings, I just couldn’t tear myself away from our feeding station, which is chock-full of activity right now, including multiple pairs each of Baltimore Orioles, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Gray Catbirds, Purple Finches, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and 5 species of woodpeckers, including fledglings of many: Downy, Hairy, Pileated, Red-bellied, and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Yeah, we’re going through a lot of suet right now!
Therefore, I’ll just leave you today with some of my favorite photos from last month’s tour with NJ Audubon. And maybe next week I’ll have some more time for bird-finding again!
It was a week of catching up, so birding time was limited. Nonetheless, I enjoyed a few observations of note over the past six days, highlighted by a successful twitch of the LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE at the Kennebunk Plains on the 25th (with Jess Costa; photo above).
Otherwise, there was a single Red Crossbill over our property in Durham on 6/26 (with Jeannette), and today at Scarborough Marsh, 3 Lesser Yellowlegs (one at Eastern Road, two at Pelreco) – the first of fall! Yes, southbound shorebird migration is now underway!
TOUR REPORTS:
Still catching up on tour reports, a brief rundown of my Rangeley Birding Workshop for Down East Adventures from early June.
Maine Birding Field Notes 