Day 19.293: Food and music

Exile #2 and I had a little date-night in Portland. We started with gluten-free Chinese food:

And then headed to One Longfellow Square for this:

We were mainly there to see Jesse James Deconto (The Pinkerton Raid) who we’d seen on his last visit to Maine.

He was once again thoroughly engaging with his storytelling in word and song. 

The main act was great too - Upstate - a band that formed in the Hudson Valley in New York somewhere we would almost certainly have considered “downstate” when we lived in the Albany area. They embraced the nearly-Halloween vibe by dressing in running gear with home-made race numbers and starting their set with a rendition (while running in place) of “Band on the (a) Run”:

Their infectious energy and lovely harmonies were a treat throughout. 

Day 19.292: Squirrel on the brush pile

That’s all. 

Day 19.291: Cemetery birds

Some birds from our Saturday morning walk:

Northern flicker

Red-bellied woodpecker 

Bald eagle

House finch

Downy woodpecker

Yellow-bellied sapsucker

American robin

House finch 

Eastern bluebird

A pretty good selection during a brief walk.

Day 19.290: More Sunday birds

Here are some of the birds we saw before we tracked the dove down:

Carolina wren

Purple finch

Red-necked grebe 

Surf scoters

White crowned sparrow (and house sparrow)

American herring gull with two harbor seals

American oystercatcher

White-throated sparrow 

Song sparrow

Song sparrow 

Great cormorant 

Common eider

Red-throated loon

Common loon

European starlings

Northern mockingbird 

Yellow-rumped warbler

Yellow-rumped warbler

Day 19.289: White-winged dove

Our nature group had arranged to meet on Sunday afternoon in Biddeford Pool before a rare-for-Maine white-winged dove arrived and was seen daily along one short stretch of coastal street. Thinking seeing this bird was nearly certain, we abandoned our previous plan to walk down and find the bird. A couple of hours later, we’d had a lovely time and seen several interesting birds, but no dove when we decided to call it a day. 

Exile #2 and I took one more turn (by car) along the coast road - as did our group leaders and we were rewarded (mostly thanks to another birder who virtually tripped over the bird) by some lovely views of this bird - unbothered by people and cars as they passed within a foot or so of its chosen location. 

Based on where it was, it’s quite likely we walked right by it or at least very near it earlier in the afternoon.

Day 19.288: Exile #2's Sunday Column #566

Exile #2 writes...

With just over a week until the midterms, our media and our mailboxes have been inundated with ads for the upcoming elections. We have received summaries of our voting record along with the encouragement to vote again. We have had flyers and visitors to the doorstep. The younger exiles have received particular attention, and even some handwritten notes, but today, friends from our nature group handed round perhaps my favorite piece of election merch so far. Penzeys Spices, doing its part for the Democratic Party, have been distributing spice mixes with the exhortation to “season liberally”. Each packet comes with a little lesson in civics and the potential to create something delicious. Who wouldn’t vote for that?

Day 19.287: Morning at the cemetery

Exile #2 and I seized the day with a pre-breakfast walk at the cemetery today. Here is some of what we saw in the morning sunshine:

We saw some birds too - a good variety albeit nothing very unusual. I'll save them for another day.