Sunday 20 December 2015

[Maine-birds] Peaks Island Portland CBC Kittiwake, Razorbill, Rough-legged Hawk

Hello All,

A party of five-six enjoyed a great day of birding on Peaks Island though not finding much-hoped-or lingering insectivores.

Highlights were two Black-legged Kittiwake and three Razorbills in the very active channel between Peaks and Long Island.  We also counted a conservative 85 Red-necked Grebes in this channel which was by far contributed a 30+ year high for the island.  They were evident in every scan of the ocean side of the island.

14 Purple Sandpipers made a showing. Shots from duck hunters spooked a dozen Great Cormorants from a roost.

We eked out two Carolina Wrens and two Red-bellied Woodpeckers from usual haunts.

Notable misses were Horned Grebe, Dark-eyed Junco and White-throated Sparrow.

Three Bald Eagles and a light morph Rough-legged Hawk (probable juvenile) were also seen between Peaks and Long Island working against the strong winds.

A a rear end view of a small to medium passerine with lemon yellow underparts  disappearing into a heavy tangle of vegetation around the Batteries was a tease and could not be coaxed into revealing itself.  Yellow-breasted Chat comes to mind.

A sub-adult Iceland Gull along the Portland Waterfront rounded out our day at 43 species.

Dan Nickerson
Freeport

--
Dan's Natural History Blog:
Ravenwatcher
"An Eye on the Natural World"
http://ravenwatcher.blogspot.com

--
Maine birds mailing list
maine-birds@googlegroups.com
http://groups.google.com/group/maine-birds
https://sites.google.com/site/birding207
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Maine birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maine-birds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

0 comments:

Post a Comment