Some days’ outings are less about the birds you saw, but the birds you WILL see next time! Such was the case as Jeannette and I wandered around Sebago Lake yesterday. While the birding was quite slow, we further refined our route for surveying this large lake.

I think with good coverage, Sebago Lake could produce some great birds – visions of Long-billed Murrelet and Yellow-billed Loon danced through our heads as we set out yesterday. Our guess is that duck numbers were still quite low (and lower than about this time last year) due to the lack of ice to our north; ponds, lakes, and rivers are still wide open. It might be more productive to check here in a few weeks, when waterfowl are chased out of smaller bodies of water by building ice (unless, of course, it’s as mild as last year).

In addition to such “Mega Rarities” as the aforementioned Long-billed Murrelet and Yellow-billed Loon, other rarity fever visions included inland jaegers, Ancient Murrelet, storm-tossed phalaropes or other seabirds, or maybe an Eared Grebe or even a Large-billed Tern! Rarities aside, I wonder if the lake can get large flocks of scaup or other more common ducks. How about migrants scoters, terns, and odd gulls? If no one is looking, we’ll never know!

But, Jeannette and I now have a good route for covering the lake. Although public access is limited, boat launches, dead-end streets, etc can all be useful in providing views of the open water. Furthermore, future value was added by our trip to Portland from Sebago Lake via Rte 237, a “life” road for us. Intriguing, and worth a few marks on the map, was the small sod farm that we discovered – good to know for future reference, i.e. Buff-breasted Sandpipers next fall.

Here are the totals of Waterbirds from the day:
Common Goldeneye: 62
Canada Goose: 28
Mallard: 18
Ring-billed Gull: 15
Hooded Merganser: 11
Horned Grebe: 6
Common Merganser: 4
Common Loon: 4
Bufflehead: 2

This morning, in the fog and drizzle, I enjoyed a Northern Shrike, probably an immature bird, at Hedgehog Mountain Park – already my second here of the season. Hopefully, the good number of shrike sightings in Maine already this year foreshadow a good winter for this fascinating species in this area.