Wild Bird Center of Yarmouth Fire

Sadly the Wild Bird Center of Yarmouth, and 9 other businesses in the building are no more. A 6 alarm fire destroyed the building last night.

YARMOUTH (NEWS CENTER) — Fire crews are still on scene trying to get a six alarm fire under control on Route 1 in Yarmouth.
The fire first broke out just after 9pm Friday at a commercial structure that houses several businesses and organizations, including The Wild Bird Center.
A full task force alarm has been sounded, meaning that all available mutual aid from Cumberland County is being called to the scene.
To assist in fighting the fire, power has been cut to the immediate area, leaving many nearby residents in the dark.
There are currently no road closures and no injuries have been reported. Crews expect to be on-scene well into the morning.

 

Wild Bird Center Fire

Story, photo and video courtesy: WCSH Channel 6

(Video removed to make room for video in the update post)

 

I will bring you more information when it becomes available.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Derek and Jeanette Lovitch, and others who were affected by this disastrous fire.

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First of Year 2009 maine birds

 

Here at Fiddler’s Reach, it is ridiculously cold this morning! At 6:40 a.m., when we saw our FOY bird (Mourning Dove), it was -1° F. with a windchill of -26° F. The landscape is frozen, as is the Kennebec River.

We have a fire going in the fireplace. Sauerkraut and Pork is in the crock pot. (A Pennsylvania tradition is to have sauerkraut on New Years Day. Supposed to bring good luck.) We didn’t see pork roasts and sauerkraut flying off the shelves at Shaw’s Market, so I don’t know if it’s a tradition here in Maine or not.

Never-the-less, the birds are cold and hungry this morning. High energy food is a must to keep them warm. We made sure that all feeders were full before dark last night. Deer made sure that they cleaned out the ground feeders last night, so we bundled up at 5 a.m. and went out and refilled them.

The following are birds that visited our feeders this morning just after sunrise.

FOY (First of Year) 2009 Birds

DE Juncos: 16
American Goldfinches: 6
Tree Sparrows: 4
Pine Siskins: 11
Cardinals: 2
Chickadees: 7
Hairy Woodpecker: 1
Downy Woodpecker: 2
Blue Jays: 6
Titmouse: 5
Red-Breasted Nuthatch: 2
White-Breasted Nuthatch: 2
American Crows: 5
Red-Tailed Hawk: 1 (Chased by Crows)
a single Song Sparrow
a seemingly out of place White-Throated Sparrow

Click photos for a larger view.

 

Happy New Year and happy birding!

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Bird Feathers #8

The eighth in a series of occassional rundowns of what’s happening in the world of birds, birding and bird blogging. This is the final installment for 2008.

The CatBib Will Stop Your Cat From Catching Birds! | The CatBib was invented by a bird-feeding, cat-loving gardener in Springfield, Oregon, USA. This unique, patented product protects wild birds whenever your cat is outdoors. Here is a link to the video showing how the bib works.

An Eagle Christmas Story | This could have been a story of terrible cruelty with a sad ending. Fortunately, there are some very good people in this world and one young eagle will have a good Christmas.  From The City Birder

Turn your Christmas tree into a bird sanctuary | Your glorious Christmas tree dazzled through the holiday season with sparkling and treasured ornaments. Give that lovely Christmas tree another life by creating a winter bird sanctuary. Bird families can enjoy your tree as a backyard habitat. Decorate your tree as a feeding station during the winter when food is scarce for birds. The tree’s branches also furnish protection from wind and shelter from predators. From St. Louis Today

Female Red-breasted Merganser

The Spotted Owl’s New Nemesis | An epic battle between environmentalists and loggers left much of the spotted owl’s habitat protected. Now the celebrity species faces a new threat—a tougher owl. From Smithsonian.com

Avian airlines: Alaska to New Zealand nonstop | Tracked bar-tailed godwits set new nonstop flight record for birds: In an avian flight of epic proportions, a female bar-tailed godwit lifted off from her Alaskan breeding ground and flew south 11,680 kilometers, nonstop, until she reached her winter home in New Zealand. From sciencenews.org

Hawaii’s honeyeater birds tricked taxonomists | DNA from old museum specimens reveals evolutionary look-alikes: Five species of Hawaiian birds have made fools of taxonomists for more than 200 years, thanks to a fine bit of evolutionary illusion-making. From Science News

Snowy owl — a marine species? | Wildlife satellite studies could lead to a radical re-thinking about how the snowy owl fits into the Northern ecosystem. “Six of the adult females that we followed in a satellite study spent most of last winter far out on the Arctic sea ice.” From Biology New Net

 Happy birding!

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Winter birds videos

During the month of December, we have had a crippling ice storm, a blizzard, temperatures ranging from -5° to 50° F. and a plethora of snow, rain and sleet. This kind of weather is hard on birds. Now, more than at any other time of the year, birds can use our help when deep snow packs makes it hard to for them to find food.

I shovel a patch down to bare ground under our feeding stations and sprinkle bird food on the area for the ground feeding birds. We also keep fresh water available and clean the snow and ice off of all feeders. The birds really appreciate it!

We took the following hi-def videos just before the blizzard struck on last Sunday morning. Fair warning: large file size, broadband connection recommended!

Dimension: 500×375 | Video bit rate: 1000Kbps | File Size: 20.0 mb
Playback: Click Play Button | Broadband Connection Recommended
Streaming Video of Downy Woodpecker | ©2008 birdingmaine.com

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

 

This next hi-def video shows the many Sparrows and Junco’s that visited when the snow started to fall. Broadband connection recommended! Half the file size of the above video.

Dimension: 500×375 | Video bit rate: 1000Kbps | File Size: 10.6 mb
Playback: Click Play Button | Broadband Connection Recommended
Streaming Video of Sparrows & Junco’s | ©2008 birdingmaine.com

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

 

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. Here’s wishing all of you a happy and prosperous New Year.

Happy birding!

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Name that Sparrow

 We hope you all enjoyed the beautiful weather this weekend. There will not be many more like this before winter sets in. Looking at the long-range forecasts, the first flakes of snow may fall next weekend even along coastal areas.

Sharon and I made a trip to the Green Point WMA in Dresden, Maine this morning. Clear, calm and frosty with a very light fog greeted us as we walked down the trail to the weedy fields looking for fall migrating Sparrows and anything else that may be present.

Above map is scrollable and zoom able

Once the sun burnt off the fog, Sparrows were everywhere. Warblers flitted about and a single Merlin flew across the fields looking for breakfast. A flock of Red-Breasted Mergansers flew over, heading for the Kennebec River, as did Canada Geese.

Our tally from this morning:

Location:     Green Point Farm WMA
Observation date:     10/12/08
Observers:   John & Sharon Briggs
Notes:     Clear / Light Fog. Temp 38 F. with light frost. Winds calm
Number of species:     25

Canada Goose     12
Red-breasted Merganser     5
Merlin     1
Red-bellied Woodpecker     1
Downy Woodpecker     1
Pileated Woodpecker     1
Blue Jay     4
American Crow     16
Black-capped Chickadee     5
White-breasted Nuthatch     1
Golden-crowned Kinglet     2
American Robin     4
Brown Thrasher     1
Cedar Waxwing     4
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)     3
Palm Warbler     1
Eastern Towhee     1
Chipping Sparrow     10
Clay-colored Sparrow     3
Savannah Sparrow     6
Song Sparrow     10
Lincoln’s Sparrow     3
White-throated Sparrow     3
White-crowned Sparrow     2
Dark-eyed Junco     6

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2

I thought we could have a little fun with the pictures that I am posting of the Sparrows that we saw this morning. Each picture is identified 1 through 8. Guess which Sparrow is in each picture and reply by submitting a comment on this article. Remember to reference the number for each guess! Click a thumbnail for a larger view.

 

Happy birding!

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