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Travelogue: Downeast Spring Birding
Festival
This year's sightings included:
Common Loon, Pied-billed Grebe, Northern Fulmar, Northern Gannet,
Double-crested Cormorant, American Bittern, Great Blue Heron, Canada
Goose, Wood Duck, Mallard, American Black Duck, Green-winged Teal,
Ring-necked Duck, Common Eider, White-winger Scoter, Surf Scoter, Black
Scoter, Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Red Breasted Merganser, Common
Merganser, Turkey Vulture, Osprey, Northern Goshawk, Sharp-shinned Hawk,
Cooper's Hawk, Northern Harrier, Red-shouldered Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk,
Red-tailed Hawk, Bald Eagle, American Kestrel, Merlin, Ruffed Grouse,
Spruce Grouse, Virginia Rail, Sora, Black-bellied Plover, Killdeer,
Greater Yellowlegs, Solitary Sandpiper, Spotted Sandpiper, Willet, Ruddy
Turnstone, Purple Sandpiper, Sanderling, Dunlin, Semipalmated Sandpiper,
Least Sandpiper, Short-billed Dowitcher, American Woodcock, Bonaparte's
Gull, Laughing Gull, Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed
Gull, Common Tern, Arctic Tern, Razorbill, Common Murre, Black Guillemot,
Atlantic Puffin, Rock Dove, Mourning Dove, Black-billed Cuckoo, Great
Horned Owl, Barred Owl, Northern Saw-whet Owl, Common Nighthawk, Chimney
Swift, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Belted Kingfisher, Yellow-bellied
Sapsucker, Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Black-backed Woodpecker,
Northern Flicker, Pileated Woodpecker, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Eastern
Wood-Pewee, Alder Flycatcher, Least Flycatcher, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher,
Eastern Phoebe, Great Crested Flycatcher, Eastern Kingbird, Warbling
Vireo, Philadelphia Vireo, White-eyed Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo,
Yellow-throated Vireo, Blue-headed Vireo, Blue Jay, Gray Jay, American
Crow, Common Raven, Horned Lark, Barn Swallow, Cliff Swallow, Bank
Swallow, Tree Swallow, Black-capped Chickadee, Boreal Chickadee, Brown
Creeper, White-breasted Nuthatch, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Marsh Wren, House
Wren, Winter Wren, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Eastern
Bluebird, Swainson's Thrush, Veery, Hermit Thrush, Wood Thrush, American
Robin, Gray Catbird, |
The
4th Annual Downeast Spring Birding Festival served up enough
species to place Washington County FIRST in this
year's ABA birdiest Atlantic Coastal Counties competition. 75 people
from Maine, 14 other states, and New Brunswick attended the festival.
Participants and staff found 171 different birds this year. Of the 171
birds, 165 were qualified for the competition. The festival has always
placed high, but this was its first victory. 
The
puffin trip on board Captain Andy Paterson's Barbara Frost had
excellent weather and an outstanding day on Machias Seal Island, with
plenty of Atlantic Puffins, Razorbills, and Common Murres. The sighting of
a Northern Fulmar was unusual so early in the year, and was widely
celebrated. An all-day van trip led by Maine Birding Trail
guides Sandi and Bob Duchesne also had terrific luck from the outset. On
the Boothead Trail in Lubec, Boreal Chickadees were among the first birds
encountered. Several Spruce Grouse were underfoot, reluctant to move out
of the way. Later, while probing the bog boardwalk at Quoddy Head
State Park, late migrating hawks began to fly over: several Sharp-shinned
Hawks were followed by numerous Red-shouldered Hawks. Later, while
searching the South Lubec Sand Flats for shorebirds, another kettle of
Red-shouldered Hawks and several Bald Eagles flew over. Perhaps the
funniest sighting of the weekend came when an Eastern Woodcock settled in
the road, believing itself to be invisible, and posed for as many photos
as four carloads of Elderhostel participants cared to shoot. 
The
5th Annual Festival will be held over Memorial Day Weekend 2008 (May
23-26); the associated birding Elderhostel program will be held as well
(May 23-28).
