Day 19.223: Marbled godwit

Our nature group gathered in Biddeford Pool yesterday evening. The most exciting sighting was this marbled godwit. A life-bird for many including me and a rare sight for all of us. Most of the time it was resting on this rock just off the jetty:



But it did raise its head a couple of times. Here's a still from a very brief video of one such moment:

Day 19.222: Great Pond

Our last stop on Saturday was at Great Pond. Here is some of what we saw there:

Semipalmated sandpiper 

Great blue heron

Glossy ibis 

Double-crested cormorant 

Semipalmated sandpipers 

Day 19.221: South Point Beach

Although the beach was quite full of human occupants, there were a good number of birds too. Here is some of what we saw there:

Semipalmated plovers

Ruddy turnstone

Ruddy turnstone

Semipalmated plover

Bonaparte’s gulls

Semipalmated sandpiper

Common eider with duckling

Semipalmated sandpiper (I think)

We also saw a lot of terns on the rocks but I failed to identify any being anything other than common terns (uncommon terns you might say.)

Day 19.220: Down the coast and South Point Sanctuary

A few more sightings from our visit to Biddeford Poil. These are from our walk down to 7th St and then a short pause in the woods. 

Double-crested cormorant and common eiders

Common eiders 

Spotted sandpiper

Northern yellow warbler 

Northern mockingbird 

Eastern kingbird

Eastern kingbird

Downy woodpecker 

Cedar waxwing

Hovering - perhaps picking flies out of a spider’s web?

Gray catbird

Northern mockingbird 

I wondered if this was a rarer sparrow for a few minutes

…but decided it was almost certainly a song sparrow 

Peekaboo cedar waxwing 

Day 19.219: East Point Sanctuary

Our first stop on our tour of Biddeford Pool was at East Point Sanctuary. Here is some of the “common” things we saw there:

Common loon with a crab

Common eider

Common toadflax

Day 19.218: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #562

Exile #2 writes...

Although we missed the worst of it, this week, close by, there have been torrential downpours, enough hail to look like a covering of snow, and some very damaging thunderstorms. Thankfully, this has been balanced out with one or two really nice days and we’ve tried to make the most of those.

It seems to have perked up the crickets, who are singing very noisily in our backyard right now. It may have also spurred on this enormous sunflower, which survived the storms to tower over us outside church this morning.

Day 19.217: Biddeford Pool

It was sunny this afternoon and not unreasonably hot, so Exile #2 and I decided we needed to get outside for a while. We decided on a trip to Biddeford Pool which - accidentally put us in the path of the River Jam festivities near the mill and then a wedding party as we arrived at Lester B Orcutt Boulevard.

In the end, we did a 2.5 mile circuit that took in East Point Sanctuary, the coast road, South Point Beach and Great Pond. 

I’ll share some of what we saw later, but here we are on the boardwalk to the beach.