Day 18.231: Saturday birding

Our nature group visited two nature preserves and a beach that we had never visited - despite being very close to places we've been many times. Our circuit started at Great Pond in Biddeford Pool, but then ventured through South Point Preserve, onto the beach and then back via the new Fletcher's Neck Sanctuary. Here are some of the birds we saw:

American black duck on Great Pond

Song sparrow

Killdeer

Mystery sparrow - yellow eye spot suggests white-throated, but streakiness is unexpected

Sleepy common eiders

American oystercatcher fly-by

Surf scoter

Laughing gull

We had some good size-comparison opportunities. Here we have a young great black-backed gull (center) with two young herring gulls and two adult ring-billed gulls

Common tern

This lone Bonaparte's gull was doing some very acrobatic flying among the other gulls

We got some nice views

And then it landed (is it called landed if it's not on land?!) for a while

Young common tern in the weed

Sanderling

Semipalmated sandpiper

Semipalmated plover

Semipalmated sandpiper

Ring-billed gulls

Another exciting spot was this Forster's tern. It was the second time I'd seen one in Maine (this was the first - perhaps even more surprising). I've also seen them in Florida.

house finches

Young ones still begging for food

Northern mockingbird

Greater yellowlegs fly-over