[Maine-birds] Northern Wheatear -- Scarborough Marsh NOW!

Passing on word:

Doug Hitchcox reports a NORTHERN WHEATEAR (exceptional in spring!) somewhere in Scarborough Marsh. I heard mumbling about the Trail, which I presume is Eastern Trail. I'm sure he'll update. That's all I got before he had to go.

This could be a bird related to what Bruce Mactavish termed the Tip of the Golden Iceberg--birds headed to Iceland and blown southwest to North America (Newfoundland specifically) by a rare setup of lows spanning the north Atlantic. Newfoundland has always been the recipient of the birds associated with this phenomenon in the past, with few to none making south of there (that was at least true in the mega-events of 1988 and 1995).

Some of the vagrants have extended to passerines like wheatears, but also to subspecies that are or rare or undocumented previously in North America (e.g. a possible schinzii race of Dunlin--see Alvan Buckley's blog http://alvanbuckley.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-madness-continues.html#comment-form). So don't pass off a Dunlin you see now lightly, if it isn't as red on the back as you expect, photograph it!

Here is Bruce's tally for the current invasion, but this was before a recent Common Redshank he found (see Alvan's blog above).

Bruce's explanation and expectations for the Tip of the Golden Iceberg precede this post:
http://brucemactavish1.blogspot.com/2014/04/icelandic-invasion-tally-26-28-april.html

Keep looking! Check everywhere. Congrats, Doug!!

Louis Bevier
Fairfield

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