On Saturday, Jan. 19th, MMAS held a birding field trip along the coast,
starting at The Cliff House in Ogunquit and ending at Biddeford Pool at Eastern Point. Maurice was the leader and there were
approximately 20 participants on this mild January day.
A total of 38 species were seen with the highlights as follows:
Four RED-TAILED HAWKS were seen enroute, two of the sitting together
near the Presumpscot River in Falmouth.
A flock of 100+ CEDAR WAXWINGS greeted us at our meeting place at Hannafords
in Brunswick.
Three RAZORBILLS were at the Cliff House as well as a good number of
HARLEQUIN DUCKS.
Perkins Cove gave us their huge flock of MALLARDS while a walk along
Marginal Way produced a NORTHERN SHRIKE, large flocks of AMERICAN ROBINS and CEDAR WAXWINGS; good looks at HARLEQUIN, LONG-TAILED
and COMMON EIDER DUCKS. There was also a very tame SONG SPARROW at the edge of the path that paid us little attention as we
passed within a foot of it.
BRANT were mixed in with CANADA GEESE at Biddeford Pool (seen from the
small park where they put boats in at the mouth of the pool, looking towards Wood Island). We also saw a small flock of GREATER
SCAUP out some distance. BLACK, WHITE WINGED and SURF SCOTERS were seen as well as HORNED and RED NECKED GREBES and COMMON
LOONS.
It seems that common land and feeder birds were lacking as the only NORTHERN
CARDINAL we had was a female at a feeder behind a house as you start out the path to East Point at Biddeford Pool. It was
joined by one CROW, BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEES AND HOUSE SPARROWS.
We took in Cape Porpoise where we saw 7 DUNLIN and numerous small groups
of BUFFLEHEADS.
Happy Birding, Maurice and Cathie Dauphin
