Local birding report

October is a relatively busy month for birds across Cape Elizabeth. Winter backyard residents such as the White-throated Sparrow and Dark-eyed Junco are arriving, migrant songbirds and shorebirds are still trickling through from further north, ocean birds like Scoters, Red-throated Loons and Black Guillemots are settling in off our shorelines and off course birds from outside their normal range, referred to as accidentals or vagrants may show up.

As for limited observations over the last two weeks, favorable weather conditions and no shortage of fall inchworms starting on October 4 brought a steady stream of Wood Warblers, Vireo’s, Flycatchers and Kinglets to my backyard. Of note, a Least Flycatcher and Eastern Wood-Peewee were gleaning insects in an old crab apple tree as an Eastern Towhee called from within the surrounding thickets. A very large sparrow-like ground nesting bird from the finch family, the Eastern Towhee is a bird of special concern in Maine, and over the last fifty years the species’ population has seen an alarming decline. On this same day I spotted numerous Blackpoll Warblers, several Cape May and Northern Parula Warblers, a pair of Nashville Warblers and a single female Blackburnian Warbler.

The following day I was traversing through a boggy piece of our property when I heard what I would describe as a chattering, bubbly cry. My eyes were drawn to an old snag protruding from the swampland where a lonesome Rusty Blackbird bird was perched about thirty feet up, singing a creaky chorus that sounded like little ungreased wheels spinning rapidly. In the broad light of autumn, I could clearly make out the bird’s rusty coloring and pale eye. Slightly smaller than a robin but of similar shape, these birds typically depart northern boreal forests where they breed by mid-September, spending about a month resting and feeding at stopover sites before arriving on their wintering grounds in the lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley and the southeastern Coastal Plain of the Carolinas and Georgia by late November. Rusty Blackbirds are uncommon breeders in bogs and other wetlands in deeply wooded areas of Northern Maine. Over the last four decades this boreal blackbird’s population has decreased faster than almost any other bird in North America and scientists are still not sure exactly why. According to recent studies, the greatest threat to Rusty Blackbirds may be habitat loss and degradation on their stopover sites and on wintering grounds. From my own records in Cape, I last spotted two males in the fall of 2022, a single female Rusty Blackbird in my backyard in the fall of 2018 and before that a single male in 2016.

Additionally, on October 8 a southbound male Wilson’s Warbler and a female Black-throated Blue Warbler passed through my yard. Unlike many warblers that prefer to lurk within the understory or change into drab fall plumages, both the male and female Wilson’s warbler retain their bright yellow below and yellowish olive above with a jet-black cap appearance year-round. One of the smallest warblers in the U.S., this bird is a pure treat to come across as it exudes charm with its spritely little dances and excessive somewhat circular tail-wagging.

Also, in the second week of October I noted a few Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers (woodpeckers) in orchard and Maple trees around town. This nifty robin sized bird excavates neat rows of shallow holes in live trees called sap wells and laps up the leaking sap and any trapped insects with its crafty, brush-tipped tongue. These woodpeckers are the only fully migratory woodpecker in eastern North America. Interestingly, in boreal forests north of here the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds rely so much on woodpecker’s sap wells that they time their spring migration with the arrival of sapsuckers.

Lastly, as the leaves turned red and golden, Yellow-rumped Warblers again arrived en force along our coastlines with many thousands of these tiny gems blanketing our neighborhoods and woodlands in pursuit of prey. I recently learned that when foraging amongst other warbler species Yellow-rumped warblers generally let Magnolia, Black-throated Green and Palm Warblers do as they wish, however with Blackburnian and Pine Warblers their behavior is more assertive. Ornithologist Edward Forbush once wrote that “they feed diligently until the insects are gone, when they take wing again and wend their southward way, clothed now in modest vesture, each little bird retaining, however, a yellow spot just above the upper tail-coverts, by which, whenever his wings are spread or lowered, he discovers his identity to those who know his secret.”