Today, Jonathan Alderfer, Laura Blutstein and I were successful in seeing the bird from about 12:45 to 1:15 at Dighton Rock SP. It actually took flight at 12:58 and circled higher and higher and then was driven off to the north by a Common Raven where we lost it in the scope.
-- In the course of the day, we learned a variety of things that may be helpful to any Mainers hoping to look for it. First, and perhaps most enticingly, this bird has been in the Somerset-Taunton area since December12th. It was not positively identified at first and the word never went out. In other words, there is good cause for hope that it may be seen for more days in that area.
Today, the bird was first seen at the Somerset boat ramp, then from Mallard Point, subsequently at a private beach in Assonet where observers got sound recordings before going to a tree near Shaw's Boat Yard (private but permission given) in Dighton. This is where it was when we (and 60+ others) had good looks from Dighton Rock SP which is public, no fee and has lots of parking. After the sea-eagle flew off, folks looked hard both at the original sites from today as well as likely vantage points to the north, but did not refund the bird.
The best source of current info is the Massachusetts Rare Bird Alert on an app called GroupMe. Details on how to subscribe and instructions on how to use the group are here: https://groups.google.com/g/massbird/c/hScNIsrixew. We would have been clueless without this group as the situation and location changed several times as we were driving the 2.5 hrs from Portland to the site.
Hope this helpful!
PS-1. If you haven't followed the amazing story of this bird beginning on the Denali Highway of Alaska, check The NY Times story of Nov 5 entitled "This Eagle is Very, Very Lost." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/05/science/stellers-sea-eagle.html
PS-2. I have often mentioned how much I appreciate Maine's skilled and friendly birding community. But I gotta say: this eagle flew across our great state, almost surely along the coast, to get to Massachusetts and NONE of you saw it. What is wrong with you peeps?!? Get with it, please.
Maine birds mailing list
maine-birds@googlegroups.com
http://groups.google.com/group/maine-birds
https://sites.google.com/site/birding207
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Maine birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to maine-birds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/maine-birds/d62fda26-5c54-49ea-ab99-97338b0f8252n%40googlegroups.com.
0 comments:
Post a Comment