Maine Birds

Great Black-backed Gull

 I don't think one post is going to be enough. 

Sanderling with clam on the half shell

Here in Montgomery County I have never seen a Sanderling, although they have been encountered here historically. On the beaches of Maine I saw hundreds upon hundreds, scuttling through the wrack hunting for tiny morsels of food, assorted invertebrates of which there must have been millions. These little cuties nest in the high arctic tundra, but during migration they disperse to sandy beaches all over the world. They are the birds you often see at the edge of the waves, racing in and out with the water, grabbing tasty treats. They are one of my favorite sandpipers.

Semi-palmated Sandpipers

There were equal numbers of Semi-palmated Sandpipers, interspersed with the Sanderlings. (I found one of those at the Schoharie Crossing boat launch this year.)  Shorebirds are challenging to identify to say the least, and I use What's This Bird pretty often. However, semi-palmated means that they have partial webbing between their toes and Sanderlings lack a hind toe altogether, so if they roll over and wave their feet at you, you can easily separate them. Alas not one of them did that, although I did get some pics of Sanderlings with the toe...or lack of one...visible.

Semi-palmated Plover, just for confusion's sake

His little semi-palmated feet

Beach covered with wrack, invasive Asian seaweed
Birds loved it
But ugh!

Cute little Ring-billed Gull

Then there were the gulls, OMG the gulls. There wasn't a single species that isn't common right here in Fultonville in Winter, but hereabouts they don't let you walk up three feet away to take pictures. The larus group in general has a terrible and well-deserved reputation for being pretty awful, but boy, did I have fun with them. Photos of their squabbles and cosmopolitan dietary inclinations beg to be captioned, ferocious clowns that they are. If birds were once dinosaurs gulls aren't far from their ancestors.

Herring Gulls having a kerfuffle 

Best bird of the week, or birds if you prefer, was a pair of American Golden Plovers. After a lifetime of birding "lifers" are scarce and exciting. These were what I consider to be "good" lifers, because they are birds that are very unlikely to show up here...as far as I can tell no one has ever seen one in Montgomery County.  I never saw one on my travels before eBird either, thus more special, than even a Cattle Egret would be, which I have seen right here on the farm, but before eBird. I was astonished to see them fly over and even get a recording of their calls.

A portion of the Parsons Beach area

More of Parson's Beach

Best place we found was Parson's Beach in the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. It was a pretty busy place, so the birds were much disturbed, but there plenty of them there. That was where we saw the plovers. We didn't find the spot until Sunday and were heading out Monday, but Ralph and Becky were kind enough to indulge me with a second visit first thing Monday morning before we left for home.

Snowy Egret

Snowy Egret with Great Egret

Just as we were leaving I found another birder counting there...the only birder I met all weekend. It was nice to talk to her about the area. Just before that encounter two little white waders popped into some mud flats with a huge Great Egret. They were Snowy Egrets, birds I hadn't seen since Florida several years ago, and Maine lifers for me. I had been looking for them the whole trip, so they were a nice finish for me.

JSYK, of those 374 photos I took the vast majority were of birds, mostly of sandpipers and gulls. And acres of pinkish seaweed, which had washed ashore with the waves. Research says it is invasive Asian algae. There sure was a lot of it.

Common Eider Duck...and they were too, we saw 
hundreds

I miss Maine already and hope we can hold it together enough to go back next year. 

Huge thanks to Ralph and Becky for walking beaches with me until they got sick of it, then waiting in the car noodling on their phones while I walked some more.

*Travel tip for the parsimonious. I fill empty freezer space with gallon jugs of water to save electricity. We put two in our big cooler and the food and beverages we took along on Friday morning were still cold on Monday, although if we had stayed another day we would have had to buy ice. We just put them back in the freezer when we got home. No watery mess in the bottom of the cooler when they melted either.

Man feeding gulls at Nubble Light
Not me
No way
No how
Not ever.