After 18 hours of birding, I finally had a chance to post about the finding of these good birds….
Today was the ninth running of the MDI Birdathon. My birding companions for this year’s event included Rob Packie, William Nichols, and David Orsmond. We were joined for part of the day by Ed Hawks and Becky Marvil. At about 7:00 this morning, we arrived at the MDI High School to peruse the environs of the water treatment ponds, almost always a birding hotspot.
At this point, who was the first to spot these six amazing birds is lost to the blur of excitement. What I do know is that almost as soon as we identified them, we started calling/emailing/texting/facebooking local birders. Craig Kesselheim was there within what seemed like minutes. The word of these amazing birds quickly spread because we had multiple messages during the day about these amazing birds.
This evening, shortly before dusk, we returned to view these birds once again. All six were still there, feeding contentedly on the duckweed.
Afterwards, I encountered a friend who mentioned they had been observed the day before on Echo Lake!
Finally, as I reached home, a call on my cell-phone from Seth Benz said that he was at the ponds, after dusk. He accounted for five of the birds, but one seemed to be floating lifeless upside down. The cell connection was quite poor, so I do not have the full story from him.
I will be working with Bob Duchesne on a Downeast birding tour tomorrow, so I will not be able to return to check in on these birds. I will be curious if they stay, and if so, for how long….
Richard MacDonald
The Natural History Center
6 Firefly Lane, "On the Village Green"
P.O. Box 6
Bar Harbor, Maine 04609
207/801-2617 (store)
207/266-9461 (mobile)
Rich@TheNaturalHistoryCenter.com
www.TheNaturalHistoryCenter.com
www.facebook.com/TheNaturalHistoryCenter
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