Day 17.322: East Point birding

Exile #2 and I seized the day with a morning visit to East Point Sanctuary at Biddeford Pool. 

As we hoped, there was a wide variety of water birds. Here is some of what we saw.

A cormorant on a pole above the crashing waves

Hard to be sure, but most likely a great cormorant rather than a double-crested cormorant

Long-tailed ducks were unmistakable, albeit rather distant

Closest encounter - long tail not visible

Very visible shape/tail but very distant

We saw a full set of scoters.

White-winged and surf scoters in flight

White-winged scoter in flight

Black scoters near base of cormorant pole

Common eider:

The distinctive shape of mergansers:

Common merganser

Red-breasted merganser

Red-breasted merganser

And finally, a common loon

Not pictured, a few American Herring Gulls and whatever else was in the rafts far out on the waves,