[Maine-birds] Roque Island archipelago

As Norm Famous observed, numbers were a little below average on an Audubon boat trip off Roque Bluffs State Park yesterday. The late Common Tern at Schoppee Point was certainly a surprise.

 

Thanks to William Nichols for keeping an official count, shown below. I agree that we had upwards of 200  Surf Scoters, and I think we had three Red-throated Loons. I think I should have done a better job of counting the Horned Grebes, because there are some that were distant and I didn’t point them out. I’m not certain whether we had one female Northern Harrier seen in multiple locations, or multiple harriers. We saw a lot of eagles, but they were moving around and it’s difficult to say how many individuals were present. I think we were probably in double digits. There were actually two cardinals on the island, a male and female moving together. Three Palm Warblers were on the island – two very yellow, one very not.

 

Bob Duchesne

Roque Island (restricted access), Washington, US-ME
Oct 28, 2012 9:00 AM - 2:30 PM
Protocol: Traveling
5.0 mile(s)
Comments:     Roque Island Archipelago boat trip with Bob Duchesne, Sandi Duchesne, and Norm Famous.
41 species

American Black Duck  3
Mallard  1
Common Eider  42
Surf Scoter  162     This is the count that I had, but we likely saw closer to 200 birds.
White-winged Scoter  7
Long-tailed Duck  40
Red-breasted Merganser  5
Red-throated Loon  2
Common Loon  29
Horned Grebe  5
Red-necked Grebe  3
Northern Gannet  1
Great Cormorant  14
Great Blue Heron  2
Northern Harrier  1
Sharp-shinned Hawk  1
Bald Eagle  6
Bonaparte's Gull  3
Ring-billed Gull  2
Herring Gull  X     No exact count.
Great Black-backed Gull  2
Common Tern  1     Seen at Schoppee Point boat landing at around 0910.
Black Guillemot  18
Belted Kingfisher  1
Merlin  3
American Crow  4
Common Raven  12
Black-capped Chickadee  7
Red-breasted Nuthatch  5
Brown Creeper  1
Golden-crowned Kinglet  3
American Robin  3
European Starling  12
American Pipit  1     Flew overhead on island. Flight call clearly heard.
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1
Chipping Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  2
Dark-eyed Junco  6
Northern Cardinal  1
Common Grackle  1
White-winged Crossbill  3

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org/me)