Clear, and mostly calm, conditions overnight allowed for an excellent flight Wednesday night into Thursday morning.

Here’s the 10:00pm, 1:00am, and 4:00am radar images, for example:

Birds were still on the move as dawn approached, especially over the Mid-Coast peninsulas. My guess is that it was a good morning at places like Hermit Island and Reid State Park. Elsewhere, I’m sure most birders would have noticed quite a few birds, some good turnover, but otherwise limited concentrations, as birds were able to land when and where they wanted (to really oversimplify things!).

My visit to Florida Lake Park was rewarding, with 13 species of warblers, including two Canadas, 6 Magnolias, and 13 Ovenbirds. The beaver dam has been removed again, so all of the trails were again accessible, and I took full advantage and walked the loop around the lake. Two Solitary Sandpipers in the creek were my first for this park.

Then, I went up to the Bradbury Mountain Hawkwatch for a quick hour (just too much to do at the store today, unfortunately) on our last day of the count. I was hoping for one or two migrant raptors, but by 10:00am, we had already tallied 11 birds (9 Broad-wings, 1 Sharpie, and one Red-tail). Most of these birds appeared to be lifting off from surrounding woods, but hopefully this was evidence of a pre-frontal flight that would make for a great way to end the season. Meanwhile, a stunning male Indigo Bunting briefly alighted near the summit, my first for the park and first for the year (with another appearing at our store's feeders in the late afternoon!), and three additional species of warblers (Pine, Blackburnian, and American Redstart) brought my morning’s warbler total up to 16 species – my season high so far.

By day’s end, 27 raptors were tallied – not a bad little flight to finish off the count. Since we had 62 birds on March 18th, and only 27 on May 15th on very good conditions, I definitely think that we have confirmed that the dates for this watch should be March 15th through May 15th, as they were this year (It was March 20 to May 20 last year).

Our 3,713 raptors tallied this year blew away last year’s total of 2,123 birds, and we beat last year’s count for every species, with the exception of Rough-legged Hawk (three last year, verses only one this season). But, overall, the 2008 Bradbury Mountain Spring Hawkwatch, sponsored by the Wild Bird Center of Yarmouth, was a smashing success. Here’s the season’s total, with more analysis to follow in a couple of days.

Black Vulture: 3
Turkey Vulture: 135
Osprey: 369
Bald Eagle: 96
Northern Harrier: 72
Sharp-shinned Hawk: 828
Cooper’s Hawk: 45
Northern Goshawk: 6
Red-shouldered Hawk: 45
Broad-winged Hawk: 1,463
Red-tailed Hawk: 192
Rough-legged Hawk: 1
American Kestrel: 325
Merlin: 91
Peregrine Falcon: 4
Swallow-tailed Kite: 1
Unidentified: 37
TOTAL: 3,713

4,000+ next year!?

Anyway, as for Thursday night into Friday, another excellent flight occurred, or so I thought. But, looking at the radar image, there didn’t seem to be huge flight. One again, here are the 10:00pm, 1:00am, and 4:00am radar images:

However, notice in the upper left it says that the radar was in “Precip Mode?” Well, that’s not as sensitive as “Clear Air Mode,” so I think there were a lot more birds on the move than what the radar suggests. Maybe. At least it seemed like that when I was birding this morning.

After dropping Dane off at the Jetport for his flight home to Texas, I spent an hour birding at dawn along the Commercial Street Extension area in Portland. Mercy Woods was hopping, and I tallied 7 species of warblers in a mere 15 minutes. Nearby Mercy Pond was also productive, hosting my first Wilson’s Warblers and first 2 Black-crowned Night Herons of the year.

Then, at 6:30, with the sun now shining brightly, I met up with Kirk at Back Cove for a half-day of private guiding. At this time of year, guiding for birders is pretty easy – there are lots to see almost anywhere you go! However, Kirk is a bird photographer. This presents an additional challenge – not only do we have to find birds, but they have to be low enough, close enough, and still enough for photography. In other words, my work was cut out for me!

The easy route would have been to go to Evergreen Cemetery and Capisic Pond Park, where there would be plenty of birds. But, Kirk frequents those locales, so I had to dip into my bag of tricks. With passerines – especially warblers – as the goal, I rolled the dice that migrants would be in migrant traps this morning, and we visited several of them.

I selected the ones that presented sunny edges, young trees, and/or nice slopes that put treetops at eye level - anything other than having to shoot straight up into the canopy. Meanwhile, smaller migrant traps would keep birds in a smaller area, and water features could concentrate birds as well. Luckily, the birds obliged today!

Although my pace was different today, as our goal was not to simply see as many species as possible, we did end up with 11 species of warblers, many well seen – and often well-photographed. Some of the highlights included 5 Black-crowned Night Herons at Mercy Pond and a singing Carolina Wren with two cooperative Rose-breasted Grosbeaks at Joe’s Pond Park. And, our final stop of the day - the patch of woods behind Pelreco in Scarborough Marsh - was really rewarding, with two each of Wilson’s and Magnolia Warblers among others, while the marsh held my first 10 Semipalmated Plovers of the spring and a pair of Gadwall.

But, I'll only find out if the day was truly a success after Kirk sorts through his photos from the morning, however!