Wow, I DIDN’T see a Buff-breasted Sandpiper today! I was even on a sod farm (the Mayall Rd fields in Gray/New Gloucester), a preferred habitat, for part of the morning. In fact, only 8 Killdeer were present. 4 Indigo Buntings were nice to see, however.

But, it wasn’t just the sod farms that were quite this morning. Walks at Hedgehog Mountain Park and Pineland Farms were eerily quiet. Very few warblers, or any other migrants, were out and about this morning. Just one of those days!

Tomorrow starts our store’s annual hawkwatch. Jeannette and I have conveniently placed our store directly under a fall hawk migration flight path. Therefore, we have begun a small sampling of the flight by standing outside of the store each morning from 10 to 11:00am (but we’ll stay out longer on the good days!). We’ll do this every day – except Tuesdays, when we’re likely to be out hawkwatching elsewhere! – from now until October 13th.

Last year, between September 14th and October 15th, we tallied 547 migrant raptors of 12 species! Some of the highlights included 13 Bald Eagles (8 of them together on the same day!), a Northern Goshawk, a Peregrine Falcon, and 455 Broad-winged Hawks! Not bad for a total of only 22 ½ hours!

We invite you to join us, for a little bit of hawk spotting. We’ll discuss the finer points of hawk identification and learn about tools for learning hawk identification. Drop on by!

In other news, a new bird species has been discovered in India!