The cold front did not pass until about 6:30 am on Sunday morning. Despite clearing skies overnight, a decent southwesterly breeze prevented migrants from taking to the skies. In fact, at Sandy Point at dawn, a half-hour produced all of 4 American Robins overhead, and only 1 Song Sparrow in the bushes. But, by sunrise, the winds had indeed shifted to the WNW and began increasing steadily.

Luckily, the cold air had yet to filter in (that came later!), as the stiff wind gusting through Scarborough Marsh was unpleasant enough. I have enough sand and dust in my eyes for a while. Also, the wind made birding rather difficult – especially for passerines.

I began at Prout’s Pond, where 3 American Coots, 4 Pied-billed Grebes, 3 Bufflehead, 2 Ruddy Ducks, and a lone American Black Duck were present. Grondin Pond, however, held only 9 American Black Ducks.

Pine Point and Pine Point Beach were much more productive, with a lot of waterbirds offshore of the beach (19 Horned Grebes – my first of the fall, 17 Red-necked Grebes, 2 Red-throated Loons, 7 Common Loons, 47 Red-breasted Mergansers, 61 Black Scoters, 31 White-winged Scoters, a single Surf Scoter, and a number of Northern Gannets feeding in Saco Bay. Around the corner, on the rapidly inundated mudflats of the Pine Point Narrows, a good late-season tally of shorebirds included: 150+ Dunlin, 73 Black-bellied Plovers, 14 Semipalmated Plovers, 5 Greater Yellowlegs, and 2 Semipalmated Sandpipers. 38 Bonaparte’s Gulls foraged in the chops.

Moving on, I hit the Clambake Restaurant (14 Great Blue Herons), Pelreco (4 flyover Horned Larks), Seavey’s Landing (50+ Dunlin, 3 Northern Harries), and the Scarborough Marsh Preserve, which was quite birdy (35+ American Robins, 1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet, 1 Hermit Thrush, and 1 fly-over Evening Grosbeak among others).

After an early lunch break, waiting for the tide to come in, I met up with Don, Lysle, and Robbie for some marsh-edge mucking. With the 11.7 foot high tide at 1:00pm, we fanned out across the higher, drier northwestern corner of the marsh to see what was pushed up by the flood tide. There were a few Saltmarsh and Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrows (although most individuals went unidentified in the stiff wind), some Greater Yellowlegs (with at least one Lesser), an Eastern Meadowlark, and a few Savannah Sparrows. No rails, as we were hoping for, but, we did enjoy seeing 3 American Bitterns! Meanwhile, a steady stream of raptors were on the move overhead, with a tally of 10 Red-tailed Hawks, 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks, and 1 American Kestrel. I’m sure we would have spotted more, but tromping through the marsh isn’t the best time to be looking up, unless you’re interested in a swim, and Sunday wasn’t quite warm enough for me.

With clearing skies, and light W to NW winds last night, birds were once again on the move. However, despite excellent conditions for flying, the radar doesn’t show a huge density of birds. Sorry folks, but I think we are running out of migrants for this season!

But, with those aforementioned winds, there was a decent morning flight to warm up this chilly (finally!) dawn. A single Lapland Longspur, and 3 flocks of Snow Buntings, passed overhead – my first sightings of each species for this patch. (Complete totals below). Having not made as much late-season effort here in seasons past, the last couple of weeks have yielded 4 patch birds: Greater Scaup, Surf Scoter, Snow Bunting, and Lapland Longspur! This puts the list at 149, with some easy winter ducks yet to check off!

I then took a spin at Old Town House Park, which was extremely quiet, although I did pick up an American Tree Sparrow for the day list that I don’t keep. Then, it was over to Thornhurst Farm to visit the Canada Goose flock. The 11 Snow Geese continue, and are always easy to find, but the Cackling Geese took a bit of work today. I did eventually find them – they were actually quite close (although in poor light) – and the possible “Lesser” Canada Goose from the other day as well. I also tallied 700+ “regular” Canada Geese, so most of this flock hasn’t gone anywhere yet. Also noteworthy was a single Red Crossbill that passed overhead while I was sifting through the flock.

Location: Sandy Point Beach, Cousin's Island, Yarmouth
Observation date: 10/29/07
Notes: Diminishing NW overnight. Clear. Light NW in am.
7:15-8:45am.
Number of species: 42

American Black Duck X
Mallard X
Greater Scaup 2
Common Eider X
Bufflehead 135
Common Loon 3
Double-crested Cormorant X
Great Blue Heron X
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Bonaparte's Gull X
Ring-billed Gull X
Herring Gull X
Great Black-backed Gull X
Belted Kingfisher X
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Blue Jay X
American Crow X
Black-capped Chickadee 7
White-breasted Nuthatch X
Golden-crowned Kinglet 4
Eastern Bluebird 3
Hermit Thrush 1
American Robin 87
European Starling X
American Pipit 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler 4
Palm Warbler 1
Song Sparrow 2
Swamp Sparrow 2
White-throated Sparrow 3
Dark-eyed Junco 75
Lapland Longspur 1
Snow Bunting 78 3 separate flocks
Northern Cardinal X
Red-winged Blackbird 3
Rusty Blackbird 9
Common Grackle 25
blackbird sp. 500 Huge, dense cloud over south end of island,
heading SSW.
Purple Finch 3
Pine Siskin 1
American Goldfinch 5
passerine sp. 2

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)