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. 

Day 19.216: Riverside eagles

Our other sighting on Wednesday evening were three bald eagles - two adults and a juvenile.

Day 19.215: Evening sights

Before the heron-in-the-dark, we saw some other things:

Mallards

Double-crested cormorant

Hooded mergansers

Great black-backed gull

Great blue heron

Canada goose

American herring gull with a fish (probably not a herring)

The great black-backed gull tried to steal the fish but failed

Spotted sandpiper (spotted)

Harbor seal (also spotted)

And one otter species, I’ll save for tomorrow. 

Day 19.214: Night; heron

…but not a night heron.

Great blue heron in the dying evening light