This morning, I led a walk for residents of Prout’s Neck in Scarborough. The scheduling of this outing was fortuitous – a Marbled Godwit was found here on Tuesday, and I haven’t seen one in Maine before. One or two shows up in Maine every year or so, but I had not caught up to one yet.

I began my day however, just before dawn, at Sandy Point Beach on Cousin’s Island in Yarmouth. A cold front came through last night, but it didn’t produce much wind, so the “morning flight” was not in effect this morning. I’ll be spending a lot of time here in the coming months, so I’ll explain more in detail later on, but today there was little to write about. In fact, the only migrant I encountered was a single Yellow Warbler. A Carolina Wren was singing from across the river, however.

Then, I headed down to Scarborough Marsh. I had a little time before we met, so I stopped in at Ferry Beach for a spell. After enjoying the usual shorebirds, I took one last scan across the flats, and there, out towards the mouth of the Nonesuch River was a big, tall, brown shorebird.

Light, warm brown throughout. Very long legs and large size. Very long, upturned, bicolored bill. Yup, no mistaking this one – Marbled Godwit, my 308th species in Maine. After enjoying this stately beauty, I scooted over to meet the group.

We promptly carpooled right back over to Ferry Beach for the godwit, which most of us got to see before it flew up the Nonsuch River. We also spotted 2 American Oystercatchers commuting back to Stratton Island (I had one heading upstream earlier), and 7 Piping Plovers among numbers of the more common shorebirds. 6 of these Piping Plovers were juveniles – likely all six of the birds that had fledged from the two nests on Western Beach this summer. This is truly remarkable, as the 3 fledglings per nest is better than 3 times the state average. And, with only 35 pairs of this Endangered Species in the entire state, this exceptional productivity was a great boost to the population. Stepped up enforcement of leash laws on this beach during the breeding season is quite likely the major reason for this success. Good news indeed.

Traveling farther afield, I should mention that there is still room on this Sunday’s ½ Day Pelagic boat trip out of Portland. The weather looks good, and some boat trips farther south have been producing some goodies. Take a look at www.yarmouthbirds.com/travels.asp for more information.

Also there, you’ll notice two new additions to our trip offerings: a Monhegan Island weekend next month, and the big one – Ecuador and the Galapagos next summer!

Oh, and just so you don’t think all birders hate cats, here’s a few pictures of us with Kittie – one of my favorite metal bands (I’m still holding onto my hard-rock ways despite the graying hair!) that Jeannette and I saw in concert in New Hampshire the other night. The show was fantastic, but yes, these days I do know enough to wear ear plugs (as much as I like loud music, I do also like to hear Golden-crowned Kinglets and Blackpoll Warblers!). We're just happy to have sruvuved the show without anyone making us eat those earplugs! And, I do think, we were two of the four people there who did not have any body piercings and/or tattoos. Guess we're fighting stereotypes on both ends!

Me and lead singer Morgan.

Jeannette and drummer Mercedes.

Me and guitarist Tara.