I began my day on Thursday with a brief visit to Sandy Point, arriving at 7:10 and taking up my usual position on the bridge. I was expecting a big flight, but with light northerly winds, that big flight was not going to happen. 65 Dark-eyed Juncos, 14 Golden-crowned Kinglets, and 5 Yellow-rumped Warblers did make the crossing, however, while some Song Sparrows (4+), White-throated Sparrow (2+), and an American Tree Sparrow foraged along the parking lot’s edge.

But, I wasn’t complaining. I had to be in Portland at 8:00am, and I would have head to tear myself away, kicking and screaming, from Sandy Point if there was indeed a huge flight. Luckily, I quickly gave in to responsibilities and headed down to the Eastern Promenade.

This morning, I was meeting members of the Friends of the Eastern Promenade. Regina Leonard -a landscape architect who is working with the Friends group to make management recommendations to the city - recently contacted me for input to their management plan. Now, as readers of this blog and/or participants on my birdwalks here know, I have some rather strong opinions as to the (mis)management of this particular place, so I jumped at the opportunity to make my thoughts heard and affect the future direction of this property.

As you know from my blog entries about here, and my recent Patch Listing entry, I bird here rather frequently, and over the course of the past 6 or so years, have come to really know the birds and habitat of this patch. So today was a chance for me to discuss my concerns (invasive plants, mowing, ravaging of woody vegetation, etc) and share some suggestions for improvement from the perspective of birds and birders (native fruit sources, larger “islands” of mature trees, mowing later, plantings for specific birds and specific needs, etc). I also had ample opportunity for soapboxing, as I tend to delve into at times, as we strolled along the Prom.

While we spent most of our time talking, looking at plants, etc, I did of course note what birds were around. And frankly, there wasn’t much. Handfuls of Song and White-throated Sparrows were about it for migrants. So, there was little at Sandy Point this morning, and little at the Eastern Promenade (and not much in some of the Downtown lots and gardens I checked while running some errands), and this surprised me. As I mentioned yesterday, I was expecting a big flight last night.

Upon returning to the store, I checked the weather readings from overnight. North-northeast winds were light, and switched to north by early this morning. Without the westerly component, few birds are pushed out into Casco Bay, to either reorient inland via Sandy Point or to drop down to the Eastern Promenade. Furthermore, with the first good night for flying in 4-5 days, many birds probably simply passed right overhead.

Then, I checked the radar. Yup, there were in fact a heckuva lot of birds in the air last night! A LOT of birds! Here are the 10pm, 12am, and 2am images (Note the bands of rain moving offshore):

But, the images from this morning, such as the 5am image shown here, show fewer birds were in the air than last night. Therefore, birds were in fact passing overhead, and likely many birds – having been grounded for days – got out of the area.

Based on the NE to SW flow of birds last night, as seen here on the Velocity Image from midnight, I think inland locations may have been more productive this morning than the coastal traps that I hit.

With clear skies tonight – watch out for a frost tomorrow morning if you still have flowers out as we do – and light and variable winds, I would expect another big flight tonight, but probably no major concentrations of note tomorrow. However, I think we’ll be seeing more Dark-eyed Juncos and American Tree Sparrows with each passing day. And yes, somewhere out there is that “Mega” I’m looking for!

By the way, with all of my babbling this season on radar birding and Sandy Point, I thought you’d might be interested in a free, open-to-the-public presentation that I am giving on the Sandy Point Morning Flight Phenomena for the Cousin’s and Littlejohn Islands Improvement Association’s Wildlife Committee on Monday night (10/29). The meeting is at 7:00pm at the Community House on Cousin’s Island. I’ll be using a PowerPoint presentation with slides of radar images, maps, and habitat to discuss when, how, and why so many birds pass over and through Sandy Point. Plus, Kirk Rogers has given me permission to use some of his excellent bird photographs to spice up the program. Hope to see you there.