Tag Archives: Tricolored Heron x Snowy Egret x Snowy Egret hybrid

This Week’s Highlights, July 9- July 15, 2022.

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The local “bird of the summer,” Henslow’s Sparrow, continues this week in Brunswick. (Note: photographed only via patience, no playback or other harassments).

Another dandy week of summertime birding produced the following highlights for me.

  • 2 continuing HENSLOW’S SPARROWS, Crystal Spring Farm, Brunswick. Quite a bit of my birding time this week was spent enjoying this exceptional visitor.  I saw it on 7/9 with our Saturday Morning Birdwalk group for our 246th all-time Saturday Morning Birdwalk bird!  On 7/11, Jeannette and I, along with two other birders saw both individuals at the same time for the first time – as two scopes had both birds in view at once in the opposite direction here. No disputing that!  However, the echo and acoustic issues are very apparent here – at one point, we could easily have argued there were four birds! Interestingly, on 7/12, Cameron Cox and I were unable to confirm the presence of two birds, as was the case in my visits prior to the 11th.  Phone-scoped video from the 11th here.
  • HYBRID HERONS of Scarborough Marsh. On 7/11, Cameron Cox and I spotted both continuing birds. The proposed Snowy Egret x Tricolored Heron x Little Egret was off of Eastern Road, while the proposed Snowy Egret x Tricolored Heron x Snowy Egret was incredibly close and cooperative at Pelreco Marsh. Video of the latter bird here.
  • 1 subadult LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL, Pine Point Beach, Scarborough, 7/11 (with Cameron Cox).
  • 2 Fish Crows, Point Sebago Resort (private), Casco, 7/14 (with Point Sebago Resort birdwalk group).  Are these two from the Windham colony or outliers of this slowly expanding species?
  • Eastern Egg Rock/Whale-watching/and mini-pelagic tour out of Boothbay Harbor with our partners Cap’n Fish’s Cruises, yielded the following highlights in addition to a fantastic show at Eastern Egg Rock from Atlantic Puffins; Roseate, Common, and Arctic Terns; Black Guillemots; etc): 2 Razorbills on Eastern Egg, a mere two Wilson’s Storm-Petrels and handfuls of Northern Gannets offshore, but an insane show from a breaching Humpback Whale. And for the record, the Tufted Puffin appeared there a mere 3 hours after our boat left.

Each summer, I begin reporting my “shorebird high counts this week” here. Really, I do it for my own note-keeping and organization, but I hope at least a few folks find value in it. This year, I am starting it early, even though diversity is expectedly low and I didn’t get to a lot of shorebird sites this week. However, numbers are picking up dramatically, and this bears watching. Unfortunately, large numbers of adult shorebirds in early July could portend widespread breeding failure. Therefore, I will organize my counts here so I can compare it to previous seasons.

  • Black-bellied Plover: 2 first-summer, Pine Point Co-op, Scarborough, 7/11 (with Cameron Cox).
  • Killdeer: 35, Crystal Spring Farm, Brunswick, 7/12 (with Cameron Cox).
  • Piping Plover: 4+, Western Beach from Pine Point Beach, 7/11 (with Cameron Cox).
  • STILT SANDPIPER (FOF, Early!): 2, Pelreco Marsh, Scarborough Marsh, 7/11 (with Cameron Cox).
  • Least Sandpiper: 60, Eastern Road Trail, Scarborough Marsh, 7/11 (with Cameron Cox)
  • Pectoral Sandpiper (early, FOF): 2, Eastern Road Trail, 7/11 (with Cameron Cox).
  • Semipalmated Sandpiper: 15, Eastern Road Trail, 7/11 (with Cameron Cox).
  • Short-billed Dowitcher: 60, Eastern Road Trail, 7/11 (with Cameron Cox).
  • Spotted Sandpiper: 2, Eastern Egg Rock, 7/15 (with Cap’n Fish’s Cruises Pufifn/Whale Watch Combo tour group.)
  • Lesser Yellowlegs: 30, Eastern Road Trail, 7/11 (with Cameron Cox).
  • “Eastern” Willet: 20+ Pine Point, Scarborough, 7/11 (with Cameron Cox)
  • Greater Yellowlegs: 20, Eastern Road Trail, 7/11 (with Cameron Cox).

Our next boat trip is on Saturday, July 23rd to Seal Island. No “Troppy” this year, but you know we’ll be looking hard for the Tufted Puffin! A limited amount of space on this extended charter is available here.

The stellar Roseate Tern show continues at Pine Point Beach. Cameron Cox and I enjoyed
a nice photo session with them there on the 11th.

This Week’s Highlights, 1/29-2/6, 2022

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While not the rarest bird this week, I have been thoroughly entertained by this Brown Creeper who has taken to picking up bits of seed from under a feeder at our home in Pownal. The horizontal position makes the bird look so different! Sorry for the lousy photos though…they were taken through a screen during the ice/snow storm on 2/4.

The Blizzard of 2022 provided some great opportunities for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing locally for the first time this winter, so I took full advantage of that, even if it did further limit my dedicated birding during this busy week plus.  Interestingly, my most “serious” birding was a half day (post-snowblowing and shoveling) on Sunday searching Portland through Cape Elizabeth for storm-related birds, but that effort turned up nothing at all of note! Here are my observations of note over the past 9 days:

  • 5 WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILLS, 2 COMMON REDPOLLS (FOY), 6 Pine Siskins (FOY), and 1 Purple Finch, Long Falls Dam Road area of Carrying Place Township, 1/31 (with Jeannette).
  • The Androscoggin River between the downtowns of Lewiston and Auburn remain a surprisingly productive mid-winter hotspot. On 2/1, Jeannette and I discovered an incredible (especially for the interior of Maine) five species of dabblers from the Auburn Riverwalk!  Amongst the Mallards and a couple of American Black Ducks, there were single female GREEN-WINGED TEAL, AMERICAN WIGEON, and NORTHERN PINTAIL.  Making this even more interesting is the fact that it’s usually the drakes that we find overwintering in Maine.  Additionally, the drake RING-NECKED DUCK continues, and we had a single 1st-winter Iceland Gull. Two Bufflehead and 5 Hooded Mergansers joined the usual Common Goldeneyes and Common Mergansers for a goodly inland total of 10 species of waterfowl. A unusually conspicuous Beaver continues to amuse here as well.
  • 3 drake and 1 hen BARROW’S GOLDENEYES and 8 Dunlin (FOW here), Winslow Park, Freeport, 2/13.

Other Notes:

  • My article – a 13-page photo salon – on the Hybrid Herons of Scarborough Marsh (Patches!) has finally been published in the most recent issue of North American Birds. In it, I lay out the theory that at least 5 different individuals have been seen in Scarborough Marsh since I first found an odd juvenile heron in July of 2012 that we now believe is a hybrid between a Snowy Egret and a Tricolored Heron.

I made the case that the two current birds are backcrosses, one with a Snowy Egret (SNEG X TRHE X SNEG) and the other with a Little Egret (SNEG X TRHE X LIEG). I’ll be watching them carefully for the potential of a developing hybrid swarm.

Unfortunately, at this time, the journal is only available online to members of the ABA. However, digital e-memberships (with access to all of the ABA publications) are only $30 a year, and you can purchase issues of the magazine directly from the ABA by emailing info@aba.org. Also, if you wanted to take a peek at the article, I do have a couple of extra copies here at the store for you to peruse.

Believe it or not, a hybrid heron is much rarer than a Steller’s Sea-Eagle, at least from a world perspective…in fact, it’s possible these birds are one of a kind!

North American Birds: Vol. 72, No. 2

Derek’s Birding This Week: 8/28-9/3, 2021

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In addition to the Sandy Point Morning Flight tallies posted to our store’s Facebook page – and elsewhere, my observations of note over the past seven days also included the following:

  • 1 adult Lesser Black-backed Gull, Pine Point, Scarborough, 8/29.
  • 1 Mourning Warbler, Essex Marsh, Bangor, 8/30 (with Jeannette).
  • 8 SPRUCE GROUSE, 1 Evening Grosbeak, etc, Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument Loop Road, 8/30 (with Jeannette). Photo above.
  • 1 Mourning Warbler, Barnard Mountain Trail, Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, 8/31 (with Jeannette).
  • 1 proposed TRICOLORED HERON X SNOWY EGRET X SNOWY EGRET HYBRID, Eastern Road Trail, Scarborough Marsh, 9/3.

Although I didn’t hit many shorebird sites this week (since we were in the north woods on our days off), I had a few excellent counts of several species:

  • American Oystercatcher: 4 continuing (2 ad with 2 juv), Pine Point, Scarborough, 8/29.
  • Black-bellied Plover: 87, Pine Point, 8/29.
  • Killdeer: 53, Mayall Road, Gray/New Gloucester, 9/2.
  • Semipalmated Plover: 204, Pine Point, 8/29.
  • Sanderling: 2, Pine Point, 8/29.
  • Least Sandpiper: 34, Eastern Road Trail, Scarborough Marsh, 9/3.
  • White-rumped Sandpiper: 2, Pine Point, 8/29.
  • BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER: 1 juv, Pine Point, 8/29.
  • Semipalmated Sandpiper: 425, Pine Point, 8/29.
  • Short-billed Dowitcher: 14, Pine Point, 8/29.
  • Solitary Sandpiper: 1, single solitaries at several sites.
  • Lesser Yellowlegs: 132, Yarmouth Town Landing, 9/2 – highest count I have had anywhere locally in several years.
  • “Eastern” Willet: 8, Pine Point, 8/29.
  • Greater Yellowlegs: 11, Eastern Road Trail, 9/3.