Popham Beach Birding

The days are beginning to get shorter now that the first day of summer has passed. With the sun still rising a few minutes before 5 a.m. and the roads tourist-free, Sharon and I headed to Popham Beach for some bird watching.

A fog bank played tag with the coast line, but the sun eventually won out and clear skies prevailed. The tide was coming in, thus fishermen, Harbor Seals and Double-Crested Cormorants took advantage of the concentration of fish in the current. Seagulls screamed at each other for who knows why, and a pair of Fish Crows explored a moored boat.

We watched Harbor Seals surface, looking like a lost puppy dog, then rolling over to disappear into the cold waters of the sea. (This mornings water temperature was 52° F.) A lone adult Bald Eagle flew in from one of the islands with a Herring Gull in hot pursuit. Later, from the opposite direction, an Osprey flew by close enough to get good views.

Not a particularly birdy morning, but good enough for a day that was supposed to be rainy.

• Double-Crested Cormorants
• Bald Eagle (adult)
• Osprey
• Least Terns
• Common Eiders
• Black Ducks
• Great Blue Heron
• Snowy Egrets
• Eastern Phoebe
• Red-Winged Blackbirds (+fledglings)
• Northern Cardinal
• Northern Mockingbird
• Gray Catbird
• Black-Capped Chickadee
• Bluejay

Some scenes from this morning, including Osprey, Harbor Seal and some wildflowers.

 

Happy birding!

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Bird Feathers #4

The fourth in a series of occassional rundowns of what’s happening in the world of birds, birding and bird blogging.

First pictures of the snowy New Year!

The last day of the year didn’t go quietly | Bird TLC admits it’s 502nd bird of 2007 for treatment, a Red-Tailed Hawk.

An outrage against hawks and falcons | Birder’s World Field of view reports that a pigeon breeder’s club in California, Oregon, and other states has been killing thousands of hawks and falcons a year in violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act — and bragging about it.

Volunteers needed to join international bird-feeding study | People who feed birds in the United States and Canada are invited to participate in a study on the feeding habits of birds. Project Wildbird is a landmark $1 million study of seed and feeder preferences of wild birds in the United States and Canada.

School construction may relocate chimney swifts | A 60-foot-tall chimney is one of the few known roosting sites left in Maine for the chimney swift, a songbird that migrates here each May from the mountainous regions of Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.

Footing the bill could become problem in woodpecker hunt | If an ivory-billed woodpecker is not found in 2008, John Arvin worries federal funding for the search, and the support of the scientific and birding communities, could become as elusive as his quarry.

Thousands of loons dying in Great Lakes area | The loon, an icon of the North Woods, is dying by the thousands across a growing swath of the Great Lakes, victims of a bacterial disease that works its way up from the lake floor.

Threatened Birds May Be Rarer Than Geographic Range Maps Suggest | Geographic range maps that allow conservationists to estimate the distribution of birds may vastly overestimate the actual population size of threatened species and those with specific habitats, according to a study published online in the journal Conservation Biology.

Female House Finch, first bird of 2008!

Happy birding!

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