Yesterday, Jeannette and I spent the entire day birding the southernmost coast. We began, shortly after sunrise in Kittery, and ended at sunset at Moody Point. In between, we scoured the coast and tallied 49 species on the day. The highlights, not suprisingly, were “late” birds that should be quite a bit farther south than Maine right now!

Despite a stiff westerly wind, we were quite happy with the totals. Landbirding was slower due to the wind, and the west winds pushed seabirds away from shore. I really had hoped to find Jeannette a Dovekie today, but the winds certainly didn’t help us in our attempts to alleviate her of this nemesis bird.

However, with temperatures in the low 40’s, it was more than bearable out! In fact, it was a rather pleasant change to be looking at Harlequin Ducks at the Cliff House in York and not be freezing our butts off!

White-winged and Surf Scoters seemed especially common, with numbers of both scattered all along the coast. Red-necked and Horned Grebes were also quite common. There weren’t as many gulls around, and many other ducks seemed to be in lower concentrations than usual. We also saw more Song Sparrows than we usually see at this time of year, no doubt a function of the mild weather and lack of snow cover.

We started at Legion Pond in Kittery, where a drake Wood Duck was lingering, along with a number of Mallards and the continuing family of Mute Swans. Nothing of note at Fort McClary, and Fort Foster failed to produce anything out of the ordinary.

Our first bird at Seapoint Beach was a very late Swamp Sparrow. The Cliff Walk at York Harbor produced a couple of Song Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos.

Long Sands Beach in York Beach has its usual assemblage of gulls, but we could not tease out any “white-winged” gulls from the group. Two Harlequin Ducks, and our only Razorbill of the day. Short Sands Beach was our final stop before lunch – at Flo’s Hot Dogs of course! – at which point we tallied a checklist. 41 species. Therefore, although we certainly had not set out to do a Big Day, and we were far from being in “Big Day Mode,” we did decide to shoot for 50 species.

Perkin’s Cove and Marginal Way in Ogunquit were very productive. 28 Harlequin Ducks were nice to see, and White-throated Sparrow and a Sharp-shinned Hawk were added to our day list.

32 Harlequin Ducks at the Cliff House, 4 Northern Gannets, and the usual good numbers of both Common and Red-throated Loons were present. Three Turkey Vultures soaring over Route One in Ogunquit (and later seen from Ogunquit Beach) were quite the surprise – in a normal year, this species would not overwinter in Maine. At Ogunquit Beach, a 1st Cycle Bald Eagle and a Cooper’s Hawk were spotted, the former kicking up every American Black Duck and Mallard in the marsh.

We ended the day with some seawatching from Moody Point. As the sun set, and the winds subsided, we made this last-ditch effort to pick up a Dovekie (and our 50th species of the day), but no dice. A couple of Black Guillemots in flight gave us brief starts, and about 30 Red-necked Grebes dozing on the water made for a nice end to a great day in the field!