NOTE: THIS POST WAS WRITTEN ON AUGUST 1 BUT HELD UNTIL TODAY . . . READ ON TO FIND OUT WHY!!!! A couple days ago . . . Ingrid and I drove two and half hours north to Bar Harbor for a Whale Watch (excellent birding on Whale Watches) and it was canceled due to […]
Yesterday Ingrid and I came upon a flock of Black-legged Kittiwakes sitting on a rock outcrops off the Quoddy Head Lighthouse in Lubec. Lubec is the eastern most point in the United States and believe it or not, is the closer to Africa than Florida (I don’t understand that either but apparently its true). The […]
Back in January I stood with a group of birder in ankle deep snow trying to stay warm as we waited for a rare Black-headed Grosbeak to appear. A birder who set the Maine Big Year record back in 2011 was providing me helpful hints . . . when he came to the one […]
Most of us are familiar with bird migration, the annual travel of various species from their wintering grounds to their breeding territory. Generally this means they travel north in the spring and south in the fall. But a few perform counter-intuitive post-breeding migrations . . . traveling in a direction that is difficult to explain. […]
Yesterday’s adventure in pointless bird counting took Ingrid and I back out to sea to find Shearwaters. These long winged seabirds spend their entire lives on or over the world’s oceans except when they come to land to nest and raise their young. Shearwaters are some of the world’s longest migrants . . . traveling […]
What two verbs characterize a Big Year? Travel and Wait Travel and Wait Travel and Wait Last January I stood in the freezing cold for a cumulative 10 hours before a Black-headed Grosbeak showed up in a Portland park. In May I drove five hours to Lubec (the eastern most point in the USA) and […]
Yesterday, Ingrid and I visited Katahdin Woods and Waters . . . 87,000 acres of forestland in Northern Maine. In 2016, President Obama made it a US National Monument under the Antiquities Act (I have no idea what that is). What I do know: its declaration as a national monument was quite controversial, moving a […]
It’s the beginning July and we’re at the halfway point of my Maine Big Year . . . six months to go. Bird #1 was an hour before sunrise on New Years Day . . . a Great Horned Owl calling at the Grange Hall Parking Lot in Cape Elizabeth. Bird #286 was June […]
If you regularly pass a marsh, a pond or swamp along the U.S. coastline you’re probably are familiar with the Snowy Egret . . . a graceful two foot tall bird with black bill and legs, yellow feet, and beautiful white feathers. Large flocks are common and Snowy Egrets are not particularly afraid of humans. […]
This morning (to celebrate our anniversary) Ingrid and I took a boat out to Machias Seal Island to see . . . you guessed it . . . birds!!! Machias Seal Island is located 10 miles off the Maine Coast and 50 kilometers off the coast of Nova Scotia. For those of you that didn’t […]
In the spring of 2005, a Red-billed Tropicbird, a stunning white bird with a bright red bill and a long streaming tail was seen in the cold waters off the Maine coast. Thousands of miles off-course . . . this bird normally prowls the seas off the Lesser Antilles. It was seen off and on […]
With the pandemic winding down, date night has returned to America . . . dinner and a movie. For the Whitakers, last night was dinner . . . then a 90 minute drive . . . followed by a five mile hike, down a scary road, in pitch black, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded […]
I know, I know . . . you’re expecting a photo of a cute warbler . . . or a stunning raptor . . . or a rarity that has inexplicably appeared in Maine. Nope, today you’re getting a selfie of MOI!!!! The Bicknell’s Thrush holds a special place in the hearts of the Maine […]
When planning a Big Year . . . it’s easy to forget the deep sea birds . . . these are the most mysterious and the hardest to find. To have a shot at the Maine State Record (317), I’ll need to get almost all of of the deep sea birds . . . and […]
There have been a number of books (and a movie) about Big Years, and a running theme is the stress they put on a relationship. Fortunately, unlike most of the spouses and partners in these books . . . Ingrid is also a Birder and often she wants to get the bird just as much […]
Back in mid-April, I got a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher in Kittery . . . Maine Big Year bird # 178. Forty days and 94 birds, later I hadn’t seen another one. Normally this wouldn’t bother me too much . . . except my wife hasn’t seen her first Gnatcatcher of the year . . . and […]
With spring migration pretty much over . . . I’ve picked up 27 warblers so far this year. The only regularly occurring Maine warbler that I don’t have is a Mourning Warbler, a bird I have never seen. During the summer it nests in northern Maine . . . looks like some summer road trips […]
Today I drove almost four hours north to pick up the rare Black-backed Woodpecker. A friend found this bird (on its nest last week) and I was very excited about chasing it. Unfortunately access to birds in the Maine north woods involves horrible dirt logging roads . . . far away from civilization (i.e. Dunkin […]
A Maine Big Year during migration season is chaotic as we rush from place to place looking for one rare bird at a time. I say we, because Ingrid is with me on many of my excursions (when she isn’t teaching her 4th grade cherubs). Most of the easy birds have been checked off but […]
It’s a hot summer day, there isn’t a breeze blowing and everything is still and oppressive . . . except for one bird that is singing over and over again . . . as many as 20,000 times in a day. We hear the Red-eyed Vireo sing so often, a whistling phrase “here-I-am, in-the-tree, look-up, […]
As Ingrid and I chase birds around the state of Maine trying to get to 318 . . . we are constantly shifting habitats. A bird that is very common on the beach . . . say a Piping Plover . . . is never found in woods, just a mile away. Next month I’ll […]
This is a Solitary Sandpiper . . . let’s call him Sam. Last winter he was hanging out in the Amazon basin, chowing down on frogs and insects without a care in the world. Then around March 15, a chemical reaction occurred in his brain . . . maybe triggered by the length of the […]
Back in April of 2017, Ingrid and I were in High Island, Texas and we saw a beautiful bird called a Blue-winged Warbler. Its stunning yellow body, sharp black bill and grayish blue wings were breathtaking. Four years later we finally saw another one . . . well . . . actually two. A couple […]
If I should die during my Maine Big Year . . . chances are it won’t be because I fell off a mountain or got mauled by a bear. Rather it will be my habit of driving slowly about around rural neighborhoods, early in the morning and scanning the yard and shrubbery with my binoculars. […]
| Copyright 2024 |