Hello All,
After a couple of lackluster river surveys this morning I found a good assortment of waterfowl in Androscoggin County.
Lake Auburn had Greater and Lesser Scaup, Bufflehead, 20 plus Common Loon, one possible Red-necked Loon but too far away for confirmation and 7 Horned Grebe.
Sabattus Pond had nearly 200 Scaup of both flavors, a few more Ruddy Ducks than that, four Hooded Mergansers, 8 Bufflehead, numbers of Mallards.
Six drake goldeneye foraging together were very interesting. Four were clearly Common Goldeneye. One had nearly all the strong features of a drake Barrow's Goldeneye--sharp crescent on face, steep forehead, tiny bill, white dots on side of back, descending black spur interrupting white on sides. Head however did not to my eye show a pronounced "fastback" rear head profile. And the head which was 3/4 backlit for most of the time, though dark, flashed rusty highlights which confused me. Sibley says "maroon" highlights are one characteristic of the drake Barrow's x Common hybrid. I still go with Barrow's on the basis of all the other features.
I wouldn't make an issue of this but for the fact that another drake had a Barrow's trending bill and steep forehead with all other characteristics being like that of the Common Goldeneyes. And I seemed to remember a discussion from four or five years ago about a possible hybrid seen here.
These six goldeneyes were observed from Sanborn Road (via Access Road) on the East side of the lake. Attempts to digiscope with my ipod failed.
At the mouth of a stream crossing Sawyer Road on the West side was an actively feeding Pectoral Sandpiper. I viewed two feeding on a sandbar just off the Martin's Point boat launch on Wednesday.
Dan Nickerson
Freeport ME
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