I spent this morning birding around Portland. There wasn’t too much to see, but I did enjoy being out in chilly weather once again – 30 degrees is just fine with me. It was a nice crisp, clear morning – what January mornings in Maine are supposed to be like!

I began at Dragon Field, once again hoping to find a Northern Shrike for my Dragon Field list. No luck with that, but I did enjoy a very good, close-up look at a couple of Snow Buntings.

Evergreen Cemetery was rather quiet, but I did have my most interesting observation of the morning. From a distance, I saw what looked like an injured bird flailing around on the ground. Was it hit by a predator? Convulsions from poisoning? I had no idea what was going on. As I got closer, I realized that it wasn’t one injured bird, but two fighting Black-capped Chickadees. They were locked together on the ground, rolling on the ground, pecking, kicking, wings flapping, feathers flying – it was fierce! I certainly have never seen a chickadee brawl this ferocious. This went on for about two minutes, the low sun at just the right angle to reflect off of each flying down feather. It only ended when a third chickadee jumped in to the melee (5 minute major, game misconduct for third man in), and two birds soon took off into the woods in close pursuit of the third. A half dozen other chickadees foraging the hemlock above didn’t seem to care.

My next stop, at Capisic Pond Park, was much less violent, but much more birdy. While there was nothing out of the ordinary, there was a fair amount of activity of the usual cast of characters.

The Eastern Promenade was quite productive however. Two lingering Gray Catbirds were dining on bittersweet, 2 Greater Scaup dove for shellfish offshore, and an adult Bald Eagle made a close pass over the flock of 1500+ Common Eider, sending them all into the air in one big black, white, and brown cloud. Bird of the morning honors though, goes to the drake American Wigeon that was loafing offshore with a few Mallards – likely the same bird that was my 150th Eastern Promenade bird back in November.

A quick check of the piers and docks of Old Port failed to produce any white-winged gulls, and nothing of note was to be seen in a brief check along West Commercial Street. But, I had some nice birds this morning, some very nice (to me anyway) weather, and yes, some snow is finally on the way!