The Southern York County Christmas Bird Count (CBC) was held on Monday, and this year, Kristen Lindquist and Phil McCormack joined me in the Moody section of the territory.  I’ve been doing this territory for about 8 years now, and have come to know and love it.

There’s lots of thickets, wooded neighborhoods with feeders, dunes, beach, river, Saltmarsh, ocean, and just about everything in between.  Running from about Eldridge Rd in the Moody section of Wells, south to the center of downtown Ogunquit, lots of intriguing winter habitats are contained within.  The Moody Marsh of the Ogunquit River, Beach Plum Farm, Ogunquit Beach, and the edges of the Wells Sewage treatment facility are all now regular parts of my birding routine after first visiting them when doing this CBC.

Having a small territory allows us to thoroughly cover many nooks and crannies.  We do a lot of walking – about 10 miles combined for the party, compared to only 10.5 by car.  Being outside – even in the bitter cold of yesterday morning – and being thorough always produces good birds and good variety on a CBC, but each year I am absolutely blown away by the quality and diversity of the birds I find in this territory.  In fact, one year, Luke Seitz and I had a 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th count record, and in the very next year, we had a 1^st, 2^nd (x2), 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th,  6^th, and 7th count record!  Incredible!

And yesterday did not disappoint.

Deep snow and frigid temperatures certainly caused some rarities and so-called half-hardies to perish, or at least pushed many of them to points further south.  Open fresh water was limited, and deep snow prevented us from checking a few places.  So it did not surprise me that we “only” tallied 57 species (compared to last year’s mild December, when Luke and I tallied an exceptional 67 species), and we didn’t get a whole lot of top-5 records.  Of course, TWO 1^st count records more than made up for it!  And a 5th, and a 6^th, and a 7^th, and two 9^th!

As usual, we began with a dawn seawatch at Moody Point.  Heat shimmer and painful cold reduced visibility and our duration here, but there wasn’t too much going on thanks to a light westerly wind.

A nearby thicket produced a Common Yellowthroat, our first good bird of the day.  A short while later, we pulled into the Wells Sewage Treatment plant, which I told Phil and Kristen is usually good for something “good.”  A Hermit Thrush quickly appeared to prove me right.  But then, as I glanced over at some Dark-eyed Juncos I noticed a Spizella sparrow.  I was excited enough for a Chipping Sparrow on a Maine CBC, but the bird looked warm and buffy to me.  Upon closer inspection, sure enough – the count’s first Clay-colored Sparrow

As I was photographing it, it flew closer, and landed right over my head as I was kneeling in over a foot of snow.

Apparently, it wanted to get back to its favorite spot (which is continued to frequent at least through day’s end) at the edge of the parking lot where a plow had scraped down to the soil.

We were still talking about our spiffy little Clay-color when Kristen spotted a Brown Thrasher hunkered down in a tangle of Multiflora Rose.  Another first count record!

Perhaps the rest of the day was bound to be a bit anticlimactic after all of that fun before 9:30am, but we still had some great birding.  A lone hen Greater Scaup flew down the OgunquitRiver, while a huge assemblage of 480 Mallards and 86 American Black Ducks roosted at the edge of the marsh.  Much to my surprise – given those numbers – there were no other lingering dabblers.    An Iceland Gull passed by MoodyBeach, heading south, and on OgunquitBeach, we found an American Pipit.  A huge aggregation of 186 Sanderlings (an all-time high count for the entire territory in a season!) contained a dozen Dunlin.  And finally, another group (poachers!) pointed out a Peregrine Falcon having lunch on the marsh – just before its lunch was pilfered by a marauding Bald Eagle!  Speaking of lunch, a round of grilled veggie sandwiches at the Village Market in Ogunquit rounded out our experience.

Oh yeah, and then with an hour of daylight left, we raced down to Hampton, New Hampshire in an attempt to twitch a white Gyrfalcon that had been seen that morning (and the previous two days).  Unfortunately, we soon learned that it had not been seen since about 8:00am.  Well, it was worth a shot.

Anyway, as for the CBC, here’s the full roster and tallies for our rewarding little territory:
148 Canada Geese
143 American Black Ducks
522 Mallards
1 GREATER SCAUP (6^th year)
91 Common Eiders
14 Surf Scoters
30 White-winged Scoters
16 Black Scoters
136 Long-tailed Ducks
24 Bufflehead
7 Common Goldeneyes
2 Hooded Mergansers
4 Common Mergansers
12 Red-breasted Mergansers
18 Common Loons
7 Horned Grebes
12 Red-necked Grebes
1 Northern Gannet
3 Great Blue Herons
2 Bald Eagles
4 Northern Harriers (including an adult male migrating offshore at sunrise)
1 PEREGRINE FALCON (5^th count record)
12 DUNLIN (7^th count record)
2 Purple Sandpipers
189 Sanderlings
322 Herring Gulls
1 Iceland Gull
19 Great Black-backed Gulls
242 Ring-billed Gulls
4 Black-legged Kittiwakes
36 Rock Pigeons
6 Mourning Doves
3 Downy Woodpeckers
7 Blue Jays
31 American Crows
71 Black-capped Chickadees
9 Tufted Titmice
4 White-breasted Nuthatches
3 Carolina Wrens
8 Eastern Bluebirds
1 HERMIT THRUSH (9^th year)
40 American Robins
3 Northern Mockingbirds
1 BROWN THRASHER (1^st count record)
1 AMERICAN PIPIT (13^th count record)
77 European Starlings (very low)
17 Yellow-rumped Warblers (high)
1 COMMON YELLOWTHROAT (9^th count record)
9 American Tree Sparrows
1 CLAY-COLORED SPARROW (1^st count record)
17 Song Sparrows
7 White-throated Sparrows
73 Dark-eyed Juncos
29 Northern Cardinals
44 House Finches
90 American Goldfinches
215 House Sparrows