It was another lousy day on our day off yesterday, but, the worse the weather, the better the seawatching, so Jeannette and I went down to Dyer Point, Cape Elizabeth to spend the morning under the shelter of the porch at the Lobster Shack (I’m really grateful for those folks!). Unfortunately, the winds were more northerly than easterly, so the flight was not as heavy as we had hoped. In an hour and a half, we tallied 17 species (complete list and totals below), with highlights including 3 female Harlequin Ducks on the water, 2 Brant on the rocks, two Black-legged Kittiwakes, and a steady trickle of Red-throated Loons.

After that, we checked Grondin and Prout’s Ponds in Scarborough. 2 Redheads, 14 Ruddy Ducks, and 5 American Coots were in Grondin, while Prout’s held one lone Ruddy but 18 Hooded Mergansers.

This morning, in our season’s first snow, I had 2 Common Redpolls fly over me at my local patch, Hedgehog Mountain Park in Freeport – hopefully a sign of things to come.

Speaking of the first snow of the year, this is a great time to be checking the visitors to your feeding station closely! While today’s coating didn’t bury too much, we are expecting a few inches over the next couple of days. Groundfeeders such as native sparrows will come out of the fields for seeds such as white millet, any lingering insect eaters (yes, that includes rarities!) will be attracted to suet - especially suet with insects added, like our WBC Insect Suet Cake, or even peanuts and sunflower seed. Meanwhile, our common backyard denizens will also be looking for the easy fat and protein sources that quality bird seed offers, so visits to feeding station by everything from Chickadees to Downy Woodpeckers will often increase as the quality of the weather decreases!

Here at the store we have seen a significant increase in activity at our feeding station in the last couple of days. We expect a couple of inches of snow will certainly add to that action! Tell me – anyone else seeing increased action or unusual visitors at their feeders in the last couple of days?

And if you didn't make last night's program supposedly on Snowy Owls at the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick, you didn't miss much! In fact, Jeannette and I almost walked out as the speaker began an aggressive criticism of the Inuit community of Barrow Alaska (what did this have to do with Snowy Owls at Logan Airport? Great question!) that was so offensive (I have worked for the Aleut native community) and seemingly downright racist that I was absolutely in shock. His dissmal of thousand-year old traditons as "superstitions that involve praying and jumping around" was revolting. Meanwhile, most of his slides were simple sensationalism of the supposed benefits of hawkbanding - and a seemingly anti-birding "I'm holyier-than though" attitude that was just as almost as offensive to me (we had a bit of an argument regarding his clear dislike of bird tour leaders and his naive generalistic critique of them at dinner) as his racist anti-Inuit diatribe.

When he FINALLY got around to talking about Snowy Owls, most of his slides were typical elitist hawk trapper grandstanding, and showed more about his kids than the birds. Furthermore, he presented almost no actual data or facts. At dinner beforehand, he mentioned his theory that Snowy Owls occurring in New England are not the result of food shortages but the result of successful breeding. Having not heard this theory before, I was excited for his presentation to explain it. Not only did it not explain it, it actually contradicted that theory! Ugh, it was one of the worst presentations that I have sat through in a long time.

Oh, and here’s the seawatching totals from yesterday:
Dyer Point, Cape Elizabeth.
Start: 7:45. Light rain, moderate visibility, moderate-strong NNE wind.
End: 9:15. Rain, poor visibility, moderate-strong NNE wind.

Red-throated Loon: 15
Common Loon: 3
Red-necked Grebe: 5
Northern Gannet: 9
Double-crested Cormorant: 1
Great Cormorant: 8
Brant: 2
American Black Duck: 1
Common Eider: 76
Harlequin Duck: 3
Surf Scoter: 3
White-winged Scoter: 4
Black Scoter: 14
Unidentified “dark-winged” scoter:
Long-tailed Duck: 47
Bonaparte’s Gull: 9
Black-legged Kittiwake: 2
Black Guillemot: 1

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!