A Barred Owl and a Barrow’s Goldeneye

A storm on Monday brought 6 to 9 inches of snow to the region with temperatures still well below normal.

While breaking for lunch at work on Friday, I parked along Back Cove off Preble Street in Portland and did some bird watching. I was not disappointed! Two groups of Snow Buntings, which totaled 40 birds, were feeding along the jogging path.

In Back Cove, Hooded Mergansers, White-Winged Scoters and Red-Breasted Mergansers were feeding. A Red-Tailed Hawk stood watch atop of the under construction Bayside Student Housing complex on the corner of Preble Street and Marginal Way.

Heading back to work, an adult Northern Shrike perched on a fench across from Wesco on Marginal Way. At this same location, Several Black-Backed Gulls chased and attacked some Crows in mid-air. As unusual as this is, it deserves the Crows right. Now they know what it’s like to be harassed!

This weekend was more or less quiet along our birding route. Cloudy skies kept my camera rig under wraps. The above picture of Mt. Washington, (click picture for a larger view) was taken this morning at Pine Point near Scarborough, Maine. Not included in the bird species list below, was the sighting of 3 Harbor Seals and a Gray Seal in the harbor at Pine Point. A Barred Owl and a Barrow’s Goldeneye were the highlights of our Sunday morning bird watching routine.

A large group of Purple Sandpipers were seen at Fortune Rocks Beach. I walked nearly a mile down the beach to get into position to get a photograph. Just as I crouched down to take a picture,  a dog came chasing after the flock, with its owner jogging nearby doing nothing to keep the dog from harassing the birds. And of all things not to have under control on a beach, it was a bird dog. I said a few words to the owner, but I was completely ignored. Later as I walked back towards where I had parked, I watched as the dog went into the water after Gulls and Eiders, again with the owner paying no attention to what the dog was doing. Maybe a call to Fish and Wildlife would have been the route to go with this lug-head, but my battery was dead in my cell phone and I had no idea where he was parked to get a plate number. It’s irresponsible dog owners like this that allow their dogs to stress and kill our already depleted numbers of birds.

The following is a list of species seen this morning:

Location:     Pine Point, Scarborough
Observation date:     12/9/07  Observers: John & Sharon Briggs
Notes:     Mostly cloudy, light west winds, temperature 16 F.
Number of species:     32
 
Canada Goose     6
American Black Duck     16
Mallard     45
Common Eider     15
Surf Scoter     2
White-winged Scoter     3
Long-tailed Duck     12
Bufflehead     3
Common Goldeneye     30
Barrow’s Goldeneye     1  Seen off Bay St. Biddeford Pool
Hooded Merganser     4
Red-breasted Merganser     9
Wild Turkey     3
Common Loon     3
Horned Grebe     2
Red-necked Grebe     1
Great Cormorant     11
Purple Sandpiper     20
Dunlin     16
Mourning Dove     3
Barred Owl     1  Seen off Route 1 Scarborough
Blue Jay     6
American Crow     25
Common Raven     1
Black-capped Chickadee     2
Tufted Titmouse     1
Northern Mockingbird     1
European Starling     26
Snow Bunting     40
Northern Cardinal     3
House Finch     4
House Sparrow     10
 
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2

Happy birding!

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