Local birding report

Wintertime is a particularly good time of year to observe unusual combinations of different bird species in our backyards. In the first week of December, I was delighted to see three Red-breasted Nuthatches, a Northern Flicker and an Eastern Bluebird on my tail prop suet station. Shortly thereafter, a Red-breasted Nuthatch, a Red-bellied Woodpecker and a Pileated Woodpecker, and separately, a Northern Flicker, a Pileated Woodpecker, two Golden-crowned Kinglets and a Brown Creeper in the same tree together.

I also caught a brief interaction between the Flicker and the Pileated, something I had never seen before. Undeniably, birds affect human well-being in more ways than one. In 2020 a group of scientists published “The importance of species diversity for human well-being in Europe” in the Ecological Economics Journal.

The study encompassed socio-economic data from more than 26,000 citizens across nearly thirty European countries and what they found indicated that bird species richness (number of different types of birds within defined geographical areas) is positively correlated with self-reported life-satisfaction across Europe and that “the effect of bird species richness on life-satisfaction may be of similar magnitude to that of income.”

A few additional notes from the field include, on Thanksgiving around dusk on Two Lights Road a Woodcock flew right over my mothers-in-law’s head and on December 9 along the Gull Crest Trails I came across a small flock of seed foraging American Tree Sparrows.

An omen of impending winter, Tree Sparrows hail from the tundra of the far north and are typically seen in Cape during only the winter months. These plump reddish-brown and gray sparrows have a rusty cap and rusty (not black or white) eyeline on a gray head, a streaked brown back, and a smooth gray to buff breast in both the female and male.

Another bird that calls the high artic home is the Purple Sandpiper. On December 10 while surveying the coastline along Kettle Cove my eye caught the brief flutter of a bird on the rocks just offshore. Upon closer inspection I could make out a small flock of Purple Sandpipers reveling in the commotion of the wintry sea. These sandpipers are mouse-gray above and mostly whitish below and they choose to winter farther north on the Atlantic coast than any other shorebird.

Additionally, on December 11 off Dyer Point I spotted my first Red-throated Loon of the season. Red-throated Loons nest further north than any other loon and prefer to nest on small ponds.

Unlike any other loon species, the Red-throated can take flight from water without a running start and can also take off from land. The Red-throated Loon is a small loon that typically swims low in the water with its thin, dagger-like bill angled slightly upward.

In the winter months both sexes of the Red-throated Loon are gray overall with a white speckled back and largely white face. The more recognized Common Loon is dark brown with a straight-gray thicker black bill, a white breast and necklace, and a light black and white checkered back. Later that same day I spotted nine Harlequin Ducks off Trundy Point along with Black Scoters, Long-tailed Ducks, Red-breasted Mergansers and two Black Guillemots.

As for Snowy Owls, this past summer was not a good one for Artic lemmings, a primary food source for breeding Snowy Owls. Less than robust Lemming populations typically indicates a poor year of reproduction for Snowy Owls. This in turn means fewer young owls will be travelling south. The last major Snowy Owl irruption was during the winter of 2017/2018. That said, scientists cannot measure the entire Lemming population and there could have been a lemming boom somewhere across the vast tundra that went unrecorded. Owls that may make it to Southern Maine this winter are likely part of what is called an echo irruption, comprised of second year owls that had travelled this far south in last year’s modest irruption. That said, eBird reporting totals for Snowy Owls in Southern Maine thus far in 2022 are a single owl reported in Scarborough on December 8 and around the same time a Snowy was spotted on the Isle of Shoals.

Remember that if you do see a rare bird like a Snowy Owl, please keep one’s distance. If the bird is constantly staring at you then you are too close. Risking unnecessary disturbances may further stress a bird out and/or scare the bird away so the next person does not get to see it.