The Glossy Ibis has become a regular summer visitor to the marshes of southern Maine. Feeding in huge flocks, their redish-black plumage gives off a shimmer in the sun. The flock in this photo had 197 birds in it. Here is where the fun starts . . . somewhere along the Maine coast, in […]
Each summer for the last six years, at least one Tricolored Heron has been seen in the marshes around Portland, Maine. This is unusual as this beautiful blue/gray/purple and white rarely nest north of New Jersey . . . but weird hybrid birds have been seen in the area in subsequent years . . . […]
Today a White-winged Dove showed up in a residential community in Gardiner, Maine . . . about 1800 miles north of it’s normal stomping grounds in Florida. It was a gray, cold, windy day and even snowed a bit and I really didn’t enjoy the two hours it took me to find the rarity . […]
Today Ingrid and I went searching for an American Bittern, a secretive bird of marshes and reeds. I had seen the bird flying at a distance last week but we really wanted an up close photo. For 45 minutes we scanned the marsh with our binoculars … getting closer every time it vocalized (a cartoonish croaking). Finally […]
Today, Ingrid and I observed a spectacular bird migration as we watched Broad-winged Hawks soaring on thermals as they moved north. Most raptors migrate as individuals, but Broad-wings move in small groups or even large flocks. A Golden Eagle, a very rare state visitor and a pièce de résistance for a Maine Big Year was […]
Photographed this Eastern Meadowlark today at Kennebunk Plains, a grassland preserve that is one of the rare places in Maine to reliably see this beautiful bird. My friend Kevin Tolan, a researcher, tells me that the population of Meadowlarks in the state is declining at a rate of 7.5% per year, and he doubts this […]
While looking for early migrants in “downtown” Biddeford Pool, I looked across the channel . . . at the stately homes just a few yards away as the crow flies (but 20 minutes away by car). There, sitting on the edge of a freshly mowed lawn and bunches of spring daffodils was a Snowy Owl. […]
If you ask birders in Maine what is their favorite family of bird . . . I’d wager on Warblers. These tiny, colorful, fast moving, bug eaters are often just a few feet away. Warblers are the highlight of spring migration, somedays the trees and bushes are just dripping with birds. On Thursday I saw […]
This morning I was driving north on I-95 heading for a reliable spot for early spring Warblers when Ingrid texted me . . . “a Cattle Egret has been seen in Newport, Maine”. Maine is a good 500 miles outside of the Cattle Egret’s range but each year several overshoot and are seen in the […]
This morning I promised Ingrid we could sleep late and have a leisurely breakfast, read the paper and just relax. Then as I took my first sip of coffee, I looked at my phone and saw the words “Maine Rare Bird Alert – Vesper Sparrow – Damariscotta”. Ingrid looked at me and sighed, “this is […]
This morning I was birding in South Portland when I got a text message from Ingrid . . . that a Green Heron was being reported in a residential area of . . . South Portland. Well that was convenient. Trout Brook Preserve is a small (maybe 200 yards long) wooded park in the middle […]
