The Penobscot Valley Chapter/Maine Audubon enjoyed a spectacular trip into Central Maine on a very pleasant Groundhog's Day. Bob and Sandi Duchesne led the group into good weather and good fortune all day. Some of the fields in Fairfield had been getting a cover of manure, and this brought out the ground feeders, feasting on undigested vegetative matter. the group had close looks at a mixed flock of Horned Larks and Lapland Longspurs – about fifty individuals mixed roughly 50/50.

We grabbed many Common Goldeneyes below the Shawmut Dam but no Barrow’s. It was the same story at Ft. Halifax in Winslow, though we did enjoy a few Common Mergansers. On the way to Augusta, we encountered a flock of 200 Bohemian Waxwings feeding on berries and watched them until we finally tired of the spectacle. In Vassalboro, we enjoyed a hundred Snow Buntings in a corn field. At one point, they all flew into a tree, ornamenting it like a Christmas conifer. Before going over to the Hatch Hill Landfill in Augusta, we ate lunch in the parking lot of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and watched a smaller flock of Snow Buntings cartwheel around us and land on the telephone wires. Gulls frequently roost in the field opposite the SAM building and, indeed, we got great looks at two Glaucous Gulls. There was the usual multitude of eagles at the landfill, looking for gullible gulls for dinner. We picked out another Glaucous Gull there, but struck out on Iceland Gulls.

The guide's rule is that birds seen only by the guide don't count. so we can’t count the Northern Shrike at the Stillwater Avenue exit in Old Town or the one next to the highway near Route 7 in Newport. Pity.