Maine Outdoor Journal

It was a great weekend for watching football. . .which is good, because it started out as less than the best weekend for watching birds! There were tons of great games, exciting finishes, and surprising upsets on “Rivalry Weekend” on both Friday and Saturday. A few good NFL games on Sunday, and tonight: the Pats verse the Saints.

And, most importantly, Rutgers took care of business against Louisville on Friday, 34-14, setting up a big showdown with West Virginia (both 8-3 now, after WVU upset Pitt in the “Backyard Brawl”) next weekend to see what bowl we’re heading to. I was very happy with Rutgers in the first half, but very disappointed with their lack of offensive production in the second half, allowing Louisville to stay in the game far too long. But, after last week’s debacle in Syracuse, I’ll take it!

So, it was a good weekend to be in front of the TV - when not out shopping - but of course, it’s always worth getting at least some birding in! And, the weather was much improved by Sunday.

Heavy rain continued through the night on Friday, with scattered showers continuing into Saturday morning, as very strong northwesterly winds began to howl (gusts over 40mph on Saturday). There was not as much snow as was predicted, and it was essentially limited to the higher mountains, so the hoped-for push of passerines and geese did not materialize (see Friday’s blog).

In fact, there were significantly fewer geese in the area on Saturday, as my birdwalk group elected to do a survey of the local fields for our outing. Among all of the fields of North Yarmouth, Cumberland, and into Falmouth, we managed only 142 Canada Geese – and no rarities. We did however, have large number of Ring-billed Gulls (660+), and a real treat – a Rough-legged Hawk (my first of the fall) at Thornhurst. (However, the three Pink-footed Geese returned on Sunday).

The winds subsided quite a bit on Sunday, with light west to southwest winds - ahead of the next cold front - during the day once again bringing temperatures back up to around 50 in many locations.

With light winds and a high tide early in the morning, I decided to head down to Sprawlborough Marsh, beginning at Eastern Road where I ran into Leon. The highlight there was three “Ipswich” Savannah Sparrows and a couple of Horned Larks. Other highlights on the morning for me included: a Purple Finch at the Scarborough River Preserve; 40+ Red-necked Grebes, 36 Bonaparte’s Gulls, and 6 Dunlin at Pine Point Beach; the continuing hen Northern Pintail at Grondin Pond; and three Pied-billed Grebes at Prout’s Pond.

I then swung by 51 Carroll St. in Falmouth where the Yellow-throated Warbler has once again been frequenting feeders. I didn’t have a lot of time left on this morning, so I was excited to only have to wait 9 minutes before it made a visit. After about 30-seconds (between 11:19 and 11:20am) of feeding on hulled sunflower, it was off. But, I was happy – this is one of my favorite warblers, and only the second that I have seen in Maine. A slight quenching of my Rarity Fever was achieved.

On Monday, I was out in search of rarities, so I changed things up a bit and headed east, birding the Pemaquid Point area. While I didn’t have any rarities once again, I did have a good morning – at least until the steady rain began once again, ahead of an approaching cold front – and I had a couple of nice “birdy” locales. A Peregrine Falcon over downtown Bath at sunrise was a nice way to start the day.

Beginning with the Pemaquid Loop Road neighborhood, there was a fair amount of activity – mostly Black-capped Chickadees and Golden-crowned Kinglets, but also a single Yellow-rumped Warbler, and at least 40 American Goldfinches. In the past 7-10 days, we have seen an excellent impulse of goldfinches into the area, and that observation continued today with small flocks of goldfinches on the move at several locations.

A half-hour of seawatching at the lighthouse yielded a handful of Black-legged Kittiwakes, some really close Northern Gannets flying right over the breaking surf, and a few migrant sea ducks. I probably would have stayed a little longer, but a light rain began to fall, and besides, I was getting a headache from this wretched sounding house alarm (?) that was emanating from an adjacent property, and was screaming for the entire half hour that I was seawatching – getting closer to the breaking surf and standing behind the lighthouse made only a small difference.


So, chased away by rain and a siren, I hit Pemaquid Beach, and then Colonial Pemaquid which was also quite birdy: a Bald Eagle, a Red-tailed Hawk, 14 American Robins with 6 Cedar Waxwings and about 30 European Starlings; more goldfinches, and a couple of Song Sparrows. A few Bonaparte’s Gulls and about 50 or so Bufflehead were among the waterbirds present as well, rounding out a fairly good morning of bird activity, even though it was once again, sans vagrants.