Local birding report

One of the things I enjoy about birding is the year-round opportunity presented to reflect on my own appreciation for nature’s power to remind and reframe my mood - in small, yet significant ways. The joy of being pulled from my desk to the window by an ever so slight movement to spy on a Golden-crowned Kinglet flitting about in a snow draped Hemlock with his flashy lemon-yellow crown. Or stepping outside on a bright, February morning to be greeted by the chattering of a Carolina Wren while the trilled bzeee whistles of Cedar Waxing’s ebb and flow across the leafless upper canopies. Or even the arrival of an unexpected traveler to the backyard feeders. There is always something of interest to see or hear and it is just a matter of tuning in.

Notes from the yard and field over the last several weeks include: after the snowstorm in early January there were widespread and noticeable movements of White-throated Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos across Cape. As of January 7 our yard consistently has twenty or more of both species along with a steadily increasing charm of twenty-six hungry Goldfinches. According to eBird, over the last two weeks of January across Cape only small handful of Snow Bunting and Horned Lark sightings were reported.

On January 19 a flock of at least thirty Cedar Waxwings made a brief stopover in an old Red Oak Tree behind our house. Additionally, on January 20 my son and I were making our way towards the very end of Dyer Point’s rocky headland when my eye caught the brief flutter of a bird on the rocks ahead. Upon closer inspection I could make out three robin-sized shorebirds huddled together, all with round bellies, short legs and rather long dropping bills. These hearty Purple Sandpipers are mouse-gray above, mostly whitish below and they choose to winter farther north on the Atlantic coast than any other shorebird. On a related note, on January 27 I saw a flock of nearly forty Purple Sandpipers off Ferry Rock in Scarborough, reveling in the commotion of the wintry sea. On this same outing I noted seventeen Common Loons, six Long-tailed Ducks a lone Horned Grebe and a single Sanderling foraging at the icy water’s edge. According to Peter Vickery’s “Birds of Maine,” small numbers of these plump little sandpipers regularly winter in Southern Maine.

Later on in the day along Sawyer Road and the Spurwink Marsh I spotted my first of the year Hooded Mergansers. Always a thrill to see, adult males have a flamboyant oversized head with a large white patch contrasted with a black “hood” and bright yellow eyes. The male and female communicate through a range of rough frog-like grunting noises and guttural chattery cries. Similar to the Wood Duck, these dabbling ducks nest in hollow trees which are often very high above the ground and the young in many cases jump from the nest when they are just one day old.

And on January 27 as snow swept across the saltmarsh a Northern Harrier drifted across the land while two male Common Goldeneyes led six females as they dove and foraged upstream from the Spurwink River Crossing. Also, around dusk I watched a female Cooper’s Hawk giving chase to a Carolina Wren. The futile pursuit included the accipiter briefly getting entangled in a pricker bush and then foolishly following the wren through and under an old fallen log.

Lastly, on the gray afternoon of January 28 a single blackbird appeared in a tree in the backyard. At this time of year it is not uncommon for European Starlings to drop in however this bird didn’t have the intricate purplish green iridescent pattern or spots I was accustom to seeing on a Starling. The bird spent several minutes at the same perch, flirting its tail while observing the feeders before flying off. The bird was roughly the same size as a Robin with mottled rusty brown and blackish plumage and a black bill and feet. I could also make out its fading black face mask which highlighted its pale eyebrows and straw-colored eyes. Named for its winter plumage the uncommon Rusty Blackbird is not a bird that typically sticks around this far north during the winter months. Rusty Blackbirds that nest in the bogs and wetlands of wooded areas in Northern Maine and boreal forests migrate predominantly to the lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley and the southeastern Coastal Plain of Georgia and the Carolinas. An opportunistic omnivore, seeds and berries make up a larger part of their diet while on their wintering haunts and they have been observed feeding on acorn fragments. Seeing this bird made me wonder how many times an uncommon or even rare bird had gone unnoticed in my own backyard.