Cape Elizabeth birding report

Despite it being hurricane season (and thus a chance for rare birds to show up), our post Labor-day September has had a rather luxurious feel to it. Many of the songbirds powering southeastward in September have transitioned to their non-breeding plumage. In addition to this, species like warblers and vireos spend most of their daytime high in the upper canopies and virtually out of sight. For these reasons bird identification at this time of year can be particularly tricky.

During the first two weeks of September, I found an Ovenbird (warbler) hiding in the Pond Cove tangles above the rocky beach. As I have previously mentioned, the area surrounding Pond Cove is a very good place to find migrant birds in the fall. One reason is that many songbirds choose to migrant via inland routes during the spring and take coastal routes during their southbound journeys.

On Sept. 12 a late season female Rose-breasted Grosbeak emerged from the overgrowth surrounding our garden to give my son and me perhaps what would be our last glimpse of this wonderful bird until next spring.

On more than one occasion mixed flocks of vocal Black-capped Chickadees and Tufted titmice were tip-offs to other travels as well. This fellowship of the feather yielded some reasonable numbers of warblers including immature and adult American Redstarts and a handful of Northern Parulas. On one particularly noteworthy outing on Sept. 14 along the Great Pond Boardwalk (which is a dynamite birding location) I caught good glimpses at short range of two Blue-headed Vireo’s and a Philadelphia Vireo travelling among the boisterous chickadees. Vireo’s are not quite as speedy as warblers and thus you can narrow down the bird in question sometimes by simply watching its movements. The difficulty with identifying Philadelphia Vireos is that they look similar to the Red-eyed Vireo and their song is very similar to that of the Warbling vireo. Identifying this bird on brief glimpses simply will not do.

First of the season Northern Flicker (yellow-shafted) woodpeckers arrived on Sept. 14. Through most of the fall season, the rolling rattle of this bird’s call can be heard across the mixed forests of Cape and is quite similar to that of the Pileated Woodpecker so don’t be fooled!

Other noteworthy mentioning’s include less frequent but still present Ruby-throated hummingbirds here and there. Additionally, on Sept. 16, four Black skimmers were spotted flying south towards Scarborough. I am hoping to catch these uncommon birds in action before they move any further south because they are truly a unique and amazing large tern-like bird that feeds by skimming its lower mandible along the ocean surface.