Monthly Archives: January 2017

Ring-necked Ducks

It’s been a mild winter here in Maine and perhaps that’s why we keep seeing out of season birds. So far this month, we’ve seen an Orange-crowned Warbler (rare in Maine); a Northern Flicker (a summer bird); a Snow Goose (rare anytime); a Red-bellied Woodpecker (the bird books say it’s rare . . . but […]

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Red-throated Loon

We live on a salt-water river on the coast of Maine. Depending how you measure, our house is between 10 and 20 miles of the ocean, but we still have seals and lobster traps in the tidal river. For five and a half hours the river runs one direction and then the tide turns and […]

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Northern Flicker

Sometimes there really is “No place like home!”. This morning before we headed out for a some local birding, Ingrid spotted a Northern Flicker on our suet feeder. It’s not unusual to see a Northern Flicker in Maine during the Spring, Summer and Fall but seeing one in January is remarkable. We had a similar […]

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Barrow’s Goldeneye

The Barrow’s Goldeneye has been a bit of a nemesis for us. The Common Golden is a ubiquitous winter duck in Maine . . . we see them everywhere (including from our living room window). A couple times during the last two years we saw a Barrow’s at a distance with a spotting scope, always […]

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A Trip to Mail-It-For-You

A Christmas Amazon Prime return was an excuse for a trip to Mail-It-For-You . . . Ethan just decided to bring his binoculars and Nikon along (and he took a particularly circuitous route). While he saw nothing unusual for the coast of Maine in January, the birds were posing quite nicely. This was our best photo […]

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Pink Footed Goose

If you saw the 2011 movie the Big Year, you probably remember the Jack Black’s character’s mission to find the Pink-footed Goose. He just misses the bird at High Island, Texas; then again in Boston; before finally getting him in December at a warm spring on a mountain top in Colorado. The Pink-footed Goose was […]

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New Years Day Big Day

Our New Years Day Big Day . . . a great way to begin the new year. We started the day by simply counting species from the living and bedrooms in our Wiscasset, Maine home. Our first bird of the year was the Tufted Titmouse, followed quickly by the White-breasted Nuthatch and the Black-capped Chickadee. […]

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