[Maine-birds] Gilsland Farm Birdwalk

Hey everyone:

We had a lovely walk at Gilsland Farm this morning that yielded a couple birds of note, at least for Gilsland Farm. Before diving in, I wanted to give a little shout out to the Gilsland Farm hotspot in eBird: http://ebird.org/ebird/hotspot/L251783 which recently had its 1,000th checklist submitted and (spoiler alert) today got its 237th species. Thank you to everyone contributing to eBird's database and providing such a detailed image of Maine avifauna. Now, about that walk:

The most productive stop of the morning had to be at the pond. A Great Blue Heron was fishing from our dock as a Green Heron sunned itself on the edge of the cattails. While Green Herons are common here in most years, this is only the second one I've seen here this year. Then came the 'bird of the morning', a juvenile RED-NECKED PHALAROPE was spinning around, looking for food in the pond! This was probably one of the least likely birds I thought I'd get for this patch but it was an unexpected treat.

Shorebird numbers on the mudflats off the North Meadow have been impressive this week and hit a new high today with ~1400 birds scattered around; dominated by Semipalmated Sandpipers. This is almost twice what we had on Thursday's walk but an adult Peregrine Falcon did keep that flock on the move. 

Bobolinks are staging in the North Meadow and a couple juvies teed up nicely for us today. The other [local] highlight from here was a Red-breasted Nuthatch feeding in the spruces on the edge of the meadow. This is the first one I've had at Gilsland Farm this year, but probably wont be the last: http://tinyurl.com/k87xjyj

And for any lepidopterists out there, I had a Broad-winged Skipper (Poanes viator) flying in the North Meadow toward the end of the walk; the second one I've had here this year.

Here is a complete checklist from the walk: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S19483457

I also wanted to mention that I'll be teaching a workshop on shorebird identification at Gilsland Farm on Aug 29th. More information is available at: http://maineaudubon.org/events/be-sure-about-shorebirds-workshop/

Good birding,

Doug Hitchcox

Staff Naturalist
Maine Audubon
207-781-2330 x237

dhitchcox@maineaudubon.org