Jeannette and I began the day yesterday at Fort Foster. This is one of those parks that if I lived nearby, I would bird all the time. The potential for rarities is great, and the diverse habitat almost always results in at least decent birding. No rarities today, but we did enjoy a pair of Indigo Buntings along with a lot of activity from the various summer breeders, from Barn Swallows to Yellow Warblers. A single Sanderling and 2 Spotted Sandpipers were the only shorebirds at nearby Seapoint Beach, which was a little disappointing, however.

After checking the river from Fort McClary for feeding terns – just a few Commons today - we headed over to Legions Pond, the home of the only known pair of Mute Swans in the state (although I think there might be a breeding pair now somewhere on the lower Ogunquit River). The swans, reaching the northern limit of their range on the Eastern seaboard here, have been at this pond for a few years now.

And once again, the Legions Pond pair has produced offspring – two cygnets were feeding on duckweed with their parents. Although, from a rarity-in-Maine perspective, this is a great sight, it is more than a little bittersweet to me. The problem is Mute Swans are introduced from Europe, and are expanding. They compete with, and often dominate, native waterfowl, including native swans. They are extremely aggressive towards other birds, animals (including pets), and even people! Plus, they tend to damage wetland vegetation because they often uproot many of the plants that they eat. In other words, they are big, beautiful, and really bad news! I think we (and our native species) will be better off if the Legions Pond pair remain the only Mute Swans in the state.

Now, I’ll be honest, July birding in Kittery has not produced a whole lot of great birds for me (migration is much better, but last August hosted the Western Reef-Heron!). However, we still really enjoy our summertime forays down in this direction. Part of it is that our dog loves the parks down here (Fort Foster and Seapoint Beach in particular), but also because of the food! We hit the Bagel Caboose for breakfast, and then hit one of two lunch stops: either Loco Coco’s Taco or the Jamaican Jerk Center up the road in York (in the “off” season, Flo’s Hotdogs replace the JJC as our northbound choice, for the record). Both are great places that we love to go – and we wish these too were a bit closer. Today, we were planning to stop at the JJC on the way north, but as we drove from Legion’s Pond back towards Pepperell Cove (to check to see if the terns were feeding there yet), we noticed the sign for Enoteca Italiana gourmet market.

This was a big find – certainly the find of the day – not only for great prosciutto, olives, a great selection of Belgian Ales, and the best cannoli that I have had in Maine to date (not excessively sweet, and very fresh) – but also because a conversation with the owner yielded some good inside dog-walking information. Chris pointed us towards Rogers Park, a Kittery town park. Its one of the few local parks that allow off-leash dogs (Sasha appreciated that), but it was also a “life park” for us. Although at 11:00am on a warm July afternoon, there was very little to see or hear, the park was definitely noted on my map for a future visit during migration.

So, while I was hoping to find something like a White-winged Dove today, I think great cannolis are even rarer in Maine, so we headed up Route 1 towards the JJC more than satisfied with our day’s outing!