Moderate southwesterly winds Monday night into Tuesday were more than enough to ground migrants, and the radar showed very little – as expected – on the move.

On Tuesday, Jeannette and I birded around Sebago Lake, with most of our time spent at Sebago Lake State Park. This under-birded location holds a lot of potential, I believe. Low water levels and lots of exposed mud and sand at the mouth of the Songo River yielded a decent count of shorebirds for an inland location this late in the season: 11 Greater Yellowlegs, 5 Killdeer, 5 Pectoral Sandpipers, 2 Black-bellied Plovers, and 1 Semipalmated Plover. 10 Bonaparte’s Gulls loafed offshore, and my first Bufflehead – a hen – of the season was in the river as well. One adult Bald Eagle passed overhead.

Elsewhere around the lake, we stopped at a handful of locations that allow access to the shoreline. Public access to the lake is severely limited, which definitely diminishes the birding potential here. With the mild weather of late, few ducks were present, although we did have our first Common Mergansers (5 in one group, and one solo) of the fall.

The rain held off all day on Tuesday, as the front was stalling. Rain didn’t begin to fall until after dark, and even then, it was just periods of rain, with some breaks in between. A light south wind gave way to a variable northwest to north-northwest flow by 1:00am. A look at the radar suggests that some birds were on the move.

Here’s the midnight base reflectivity image, for example. You can see the blobs of rain moving through, from SW to NE, but notice the echos from around the radar?

You can see in the respective velocity image that those echos – over the Greater Portland Area – were moving north to south, while the precip was moving SW to NE. This is easier to decipher in a loop, but I don’t have the ability to post video to this blog, so we’ll make do with what we have here.

This morning, at Hedgehog Mountain, there definitely were more Dark-eyed Juncos around than there has been, with a total of 59 being tallied. Song Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers (13 and 9, respectively), were also slightly more plentiful than day’s past, given credence to the idea that at least some birds were moving last night on the more favorable winds. The highlight, however, of the morning was a juvenile Bald Eagle feeding on some carcass left near the landfill – I didn’t get too close, as I was more concerned about keeping Sasha away from it than I was identifying it, and a pair of Evening Grosbeaks that were perched and calling from the treetops near the parking area – my first non-fly-overs of the season. Meanwhile, a large flock of over 100 Common Grackles were on the move high overhead, flying due south.

So, with this cold front finally passing through, I think we’re really going to see a good push of birds. It’s been 4 nights with little or no migration, so birds are definitely backed up. The wild card will be the weather – how long will we hold onto these showers, and will the wind turn back to the northwest at all. As of this morning, the forecast was calling for light and variable winds tonight becoming light-moderate north, and clearing skies. If that holds true, tomorrow could be a heckuva morning anywhere!

Furthermore, these 4 days of southwest winds are fantastic for bring rarities our way. A Black Skimmer reported from Hill’s Beach yesterday would be a good example of what southerly winds can blow in. What else may be out there? The westerly and/or northerly flow setting up for the next couple of days could push wandering vagrants to the coast. I’m expecting something big! (Uh-oh, I feel another case of “Rarity Fever” coming on!)