Ingrid and I try to spend each New Years Day birding from dusk to dawn and today was no exception.

We spent three hours at home in Wiscasset watching our feeder birds. After that it was stops at a sewage treatment plan; the bird feeders at a bird feed store; lunch at a restaurant in Portland; and four other stops in the Portland area.

We ended up with a rather disappointing 34 species . . . but there is a full year to catch up.

The highlight of the day was eight Brants at Kettle Cove in Cape Elizabeth. These birds breed in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic and winter along the mid-atlantic coast line. But for some reason a small group of them regularly show up on the beach at Kettle Cove.