There's been a rapid changing of the guard in northern Maine in the past few days. Nightly freeze ups have squeezed water birds out the shallower wetlands and ponds and dabbling ducks are thinning out. At the same time the hardy diving ducks have appeared in big numbers.
-- Large numbers of migrant gulls have moved in as well.
Tonight, on my evening commute, I saw very large number of gulls circling over Collins Pond in Caribou and even though the sun was down, I stopped in to check it out. Waves of gulls came in to roost and eventually numbered almost 3 thousand birds. Herring Gulls were at least 2/3s of the group, but I counted well over 400 Great Black-backed Gulls as well. There was a handful of Ring-billed Gulls but Icelands, Lesser Black-backed and my season-first Glaucous Gull were the notables. Photography was almost impossible due to darkness but I put a documentation shot of the Glauc in the eBird list: http://ebird.org/ebird/me/view/checklist?subID=S25561144
A first winter Bonaparte's Gull at Christina Reservoir in Fort Fairfield earlier in the day allowed me a seven gull day... pretty good this far inland.
Other noteworthy bird news was the report of a Tufted Titmouse seen at a feeder in Perham today. This is a rare species up here and one that is, apparently, not prone to wandering.
The first American Tree Sparrow flocks were seen over the weekend and a lingering Eastern Phoebe and Brown Thrasher in my yard in Woodland were both the latest fall records for me.
Several Killdeer lingered at Collins Pond through Sunday but not, apparently, the Cackling Goose that was seen on the 17th.
Regarding geese, huge numbers of Canada still remain in central Aroostook county but rarities are... well,... rare! To date there have been five Cackling geese but no other unusual species seen. Even Snow Geese reports are sparse with only 3 birds reported. There's been lots of reports of rare geese n the provinces to the north an east so I'm not giving up hope yet.
Bernd Heinrich speaking at UMPI Wednesday night about birds bugs and adaptability!
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