Once again, I heard from Jeannette, “This is why I don’t chase birds!” But yet again, here we were chasing a bird on our day off. Today’s target was a Greater White-fronted Goose that was discovered last week in the Fryeburg area.

Admittedly though, this chase was really just an excuse to visit the Fryeburg area - which has some great birding habitats, to hike in the mountains (or foothills), and to go to this great sausage shop in North Conway, NH. We hadn’t been to the area in a while, so the chance at a State Bird was a good enough reason to head in that direction.

We arrived at the fields that the goose was in an immediately found the flock of Canada Geese that it has been traveling with. 183 Canadas, but no White-front. We did, however, enjoy two Northern Harriers – an adult male and a female, and two Snow Buntings passed overhead. We wandered around the roads of Fryeburg Harbor, but didn’t find anymore geese.

And sometimes, wandering around looking for birds produces highlights that we never would have found if we weren’t out birding. For example, on our way to Fryeburg Harbor, we stumbled upon the Hemlock Bridge, which according to the sign there designating it as a Maine Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, which (built in 1857) is now the “Oldest surviving example of a Paddleford Truss system used in a Maine covered bridge.

So, we decided to take a walk, and instead of heading into the White Mountains for a real hike, we just decided to check out Sabattus Mountain (no relation to Sabattus Pond) in nearby Lovell. It was a short (1.2 mile loop) hike, not too steep, and as expected – not too birdy. However, it provided a fantastic view at the edge of a very tall, completely vertical cliff. In fact, the south-facing overlook looked like a great place for some spring hawkwatching (note to self).

Jeannette and Sasha scan the skies . . . .

We then checked the fields again, but they geese had departed. Ah-hah! They must of headed to their roosting location – where the White-front was first discovered – on nearby Lower Kimball Pond. From a public beach on the New Hampshire side, we grabbed the scope, got to the edge of the pond, and looked over the solid ice. Yup, ice. No geese here either. Once again, Jeannette quips, “This is why I don’t chase birds!”

Even worse than dipping on the goose, was dipping on the sausage in North Conway. We found out that the place has closed down, which was quite disappointing, especially considering how good their buffalo sausage was! The make-your-own sundae place was closed for the season, another disappointment – albeit an expected one, for Jeannette. Oh well, at least the pet store was open and Sasha got to pick out a box full of homemade baked treats.

After lunch, we took a long walk at Brownfield Bog. For the first time, I left the place without wanting to dunk myself in a 55 gallon drum of DDT. It was nice to walk there without bugs – of course, at this time of year, it was pretty much without birds, too! In fact, we only saw 8 birds. No, not 8 species, 8 individual birds! Half of those, however, were adult Bald Eagles, so the outing was hardly a loss. (The other four were two American Crows and 2 Black-capped Chickadees!)