Maine +6 Lifers!!

Welcome back home to good old Ohio, wow what a trip to the northeast. My 60 hour trip to Maine paid off, as I added six new life birds to my ABA list. The next three posts will be about the trip, 1) Life birds  2) places visited 3) Puffin boat trip.

Lifers needed & seen:

• Atlantic Puffin, code 1, Seal Island NWR boat trip 

Welcome to Seal Island

Atlantic Puffin, #570

Group of Puffins

Fratercula arctica

A natty black-and-white seabird with a huge, multicolored bill, the Atlantic Puffin looks like a clown of the sea. It breeds in colonies on rocky islands in the North Atlantic and winters at sea.

There are two places off the coast of Maine to see the Puffins. Both Machias Seal Island and Seal Island NWR have nesting Puffins each year.  My father, grandparents, aunt/uncle have all been to Machias Seal Island to see the birds, while I just went to the southern Seal Island NWR to see them. Many pelagics out of Bar Harbor, Maine see them also while out at sea. But I wanted to see them on the nesting sites. Look forward to the boat trip post soon. 

• Black Guillemot, code 1,  Owl's Head Lighthouse  & Seal Island NWR boat trip  

Black Guillemot #567

Cepphus grylle

A Black-And-White bird of the northern seas, the Black Guillemot breeds along the coasts of Canada and Greenland. Unlike other members of the puffin family, it prefers to forage in relative shallow near-shore waters. This was a good bird to get, I just saw the sister bird, the Pigeon Guillemot #560 in Washington last October.

• Common Eider, code 1, Saco Bay, Owls Head, Puffin boat trip

#565

Somateria mollissima

 A colorful duck of the northern seacoasts, the Common Eider is the largest duck in the Northern Hemisphere. The male's bright white, black, and green plumage contrasts markedly with the female's camouflaging dull striped brown. We saw many of these sea ducks along the trip, and even a family with ducklings on the boat trip. But we never saw a male in full breeding plumage, those are gorgeous looking.

• Artic Tern, code 1,  Seal Island NWR 

#569

Sterna paradisaea

A small, slender white bird, the Arctic Tern is well known for its long yearly migration. Its travel from its Arctic breeding grounds to its wintering grounds off of Antarctica may cover perhaps 25,000 miles, and is the farthest yearly journey of any bird. Crazy this little tern flies pole to pole each year. We saw them sitting on the rocks out on Sea Island.

•  Nelson's Sparrow, code 1,Scarbough Marsh

#565

Ammodramus nelsoni

Nesting pair

A secretive sparrow with a brightly-colored face, the Nelson's Sparrow breeds along the edges of freshwater marshes and in wet meadows of interior North America, and in salt marshes along the northern Atlantic Coast.
We saw these sparrows at the marsh, but it took some time. One the way back out, after looking a several Savannah sparrows, we saw these orangish sparrows on a stump. Clear as day these where different, and then we heard the distinct call of the Nelson's. Bam!! Life bird time

• Ruff Grouse, code 1, Prey's Brook Marsh on Aciada NP island 

#568

Why did the Grouse cross the road??

So we could get a life bird picture!!

The dappled, grayish or reddish Ruffed Grouse is hard to see, but its “drumming on air” display is a fixture of many spring forests. It can come as a surprise to learn this distant sound, like an engine trying to start, comes from a bird at all. This plump grouse has a cocky crest and a tail marked by a broad, dark band near the tip. Displaying males expose a rich black ruff of neck feathers, giving them their name.

Thanks to Ebird.org there was reported sighting of the grouse on the island, and the comments and pictures proved this to be a pretty tamed bird, perhaps from people hand feeding it. We walked the road after the marsh produced zero, when JK spotted this brown chicken like bird moving in the brush. From there on, the bird only got closer and pictures galore. It even pecked at his shoes!! This would have to do as the closest life bird even seen. Wow!!



Missed:

• Razorbill, code 1 -- boat trip on 8/4 saw the last 3, they where gone and headed south
• Red-billed Tropic Bird, code 3 -- bad weather day, hasn't been reported since 8/6
• Roseate Tern, code 2 -- nope
• Parasitic Jaeger, code 1 -- nope  but did see Greater Shearwaters
• Saltmarsh Sparrow, code 1 -- nope  are there but takes time and ID skills