Day 19.232: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #564

Exile #2 writes…

We recently discovered that Santa spends his summers in Maine. He lives around the corner from us, and drives a red pick-up truck with a suitably appropriate plate. We see him walking by sometimes pushing his grandchild in a plastic car, and Exile #3 has noticed that even his summer wardrobe shows a strong tendency towards red and green.

I assume he is the genuine article, although he’s not the only one we have known during our time in Maine. We are acquainted with at least two others who serve as Santa on occasion. Perhaps the frigid winters encourage a proliferation of impressively white bearded gentlemen. You’d think they might be tempted to disguise themselves in the off season but our local one, at least, is definitely not a secret Santa!

Exile #2 challenged me to find a suitable photo. This is not from one of our Maine Santas but from a parade in Oxfordshire in 2013 but I’m still claiming success. 

Day 19.231: Birds at St. Joseph's Cemetery

Our nature group gathered at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Biddeford today. Here are some of the birds we saw:

Turkey vulture

Little blue heron (best ever views)

It was surprisingly well camouflaged considering its striking color

I suspect he also had some good views of us

Mallards

Eastern phoebe

Very fine looking song sparrow

Wild turkey

Chipping sparrow

Cedar waxwing peek-a-boo

Black vulture

Day 19.230: Eagle Marsh revisited

I made two other brief visits to Eagle Marsh - one at sunset on my way back to the hotel and the other in the morning on my way to the airport. Here are a few photos from the evening:

Sunset meadows

Great egret

American black duck

American robins

And some more from the morning:

Eastern cottontail

House sparrow

Song sparrow

Northern cardinal (state bird of Indiana)

Eastern phoebe

Common starling

Gray catbird

Double-crested cormorant

Mallards

Purple martin

Great egret

Gray catbird

I think this might be a young swamp sparrow

Day 19.229: Eagle Marsh Nature Preserve

This preserve was less than ten minutes away from my hotel and I managed three short visits there. The first was the longest and most successful (on the afternoon I arrived). This is some of what I saw there on that visit:

The marsh

I think this is a very strikingly colored red-tailed hawk

The most exciting sighting were several red-headed woodpeckers. This one carried this large cicada to the top of this dead tree...

...and deposited it down into it (presumably feeding young in a nest)

Red-tailed hawk

Eastern kingbird

Great egret

I think this is an olive-sided flycatcher. I wish it had turned around so I could see its olive sides.

Great egret

I saw a flash of blue as some birds disappeared into a thicket. Only one stayed for a photo and it was anything but blue despite being an indigo bunting (female)

Northern leopard frog

Monarch

Red-tailed hawk

Tall ironweed

Hollow Joe-Pye weed