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Tuesday Aug 21:
We began this morning with a trip to the "BOOT HEAD PRESERVE", where we walked down a narrow trail to a large BOG.

Upon arriving at the parking lot our guide Doug Hitchcox heard and then saw a Blue-headed Vireo, which he found in his spotting scope in short order. Everyone had a look at it and I was able to get a few nice photographs as well.
Woody Gillies, (our other Guide), wrote in his eBird checklist:
"One of the most cooperative birds ever in the parking lot - not often 23 people can get scope views of a vireo"

The trail had frequent sections of wooden planks laid down. These were narrow so we had to work a bit to keep our balance

We did not see many birds while walking along the boardwalk, but while we stood on the small platform at the end of the trail we heard several and saw a few. I snapped these two photos of Yellow-rumped Warblers.
I remember we heard White-wing Crossbills.

Sometimes we could hear birds but couldn't even tell what direction the sound was coming from.

Woody and I were at the front of the group as we walked back towards the parking lot along the boardwalk. We saw a Black-and-white Warbler and while I was looking at it with my camera it flew away and was replaced by a bird I didn't recognize. I got a photo of it and it turns out Woody didn't see it, nor did anyone else. When Doug saw the picture he immediately said it was a Magnolia Warbler. I said "Hooray! That's a new bird for me!" Doug pointed to the very small black streaks on the flanks near the bottom of the bird and said those made it a juvenile

After the Boot Preserve BOG trail we went to the West Quoddy Lighthouse. After I got to the bottom of this hill I found out my camera battery was dead so I trudged back up the hill to get a fresh battery. Oh well, it was good exercise.

We saw our first Minke Whale there.

Tuesday afternoon, Aug 21:
LUBEC SAND BAR

After lunch, we went to the Lubec Sandbar

It was too hot for me to be out in the sunlight so I sat in the shadows of some vegetation and watched the group from a distance. It was very peaceful out there, with a far distant boat faintly rumbling, a bit louder than the light breeze.

I climbed up behind the vegetation above the beach for a look at what the terrain was like over there. It appears that sometimes at high tide water gets back up in that area. There is a visible channel there.

One bird which Doug worked very hard to help us to locate was a Black-bellied Plover. I have three photos here and if the first two are not the right bird, then I bet the third one is. And if these are two different species, I do not see another likely species in Doug's eBird checklist for this location that day. If I didn't get the right bird , it is certainly my fault not Dougs because I was distracted shooting small shorebirds up close (semi-palmated plovers) while he was patiently repeating his directions over and over.

Semp-palmated Plover

Wandering our way back to the vans along the high tide wrack line

Wednesday, Aug 22:
Campobello Island Canada
(Campobello-Herring Cove (South), Charlotte County, New Brunswick, CA)

Black-and-white Warbler. This was a new bird for me.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

A trio of birds we should all recognize by now (but I don't!) The one flying I believe to be a Great Shearwater

Great Shearwater. This blurry picture is included because it shows the underwing pattern

This whale-watching boat came into view from around the rocks to our left shortly after Jody saw a whale's back surface in that direction. While we did not see the whale again (we think it went off to our left behind the rocks as the whale boat also did after I took this photograph), we did see this Harbor Porpoise. When I pressed the shutter, only a bit of the back was showing. Since that is typically all one usually sees I was surprised to see the entire mammal in the photograph!

No one can see that I neglected to get photographs of our guides Woody and Doug. In fact I tried to get lots of photos of both of them. While Woody always looks happy it was darned hard to catch him with a full smile.

Then another boatload of what I presume to be whale-watchers, came into view

We went to the visitors center where most of our group went inside to enjoy the Roosevelt room display. A few minutes after they left the small group in the parking lot this MERLIN showed up! That was pretty exciting.

The Merlin kept its back to us, so I gave it a very wide berth to circle around in front of it without scaring it off.

Another new bird for me was a Bay-breasted Warbler. This bird was constantly on the move and I struggled and struggled to get a good photograph. Never did. What you see below is all I managed to get.

There was another Black-and-white Warbler flitting around with the Bay-breasted, bu I didn't get a photo of it. Instead I got this Red-breasted Nuthatch, which is certainly a pretty enough bird, but not new to me as they come to my feeder at home in Oregon.

Thursday, Aug 23:
HEAD HARBOR PASSAGE Boating Excursion

Click here for Doug's FULL eBIRD CHECKLIST for this excursion (https://ebird.org/me/view/checklist/S48029492)

Click here for MAP

Click here for Doug's FULL CHECKLIST in eBird (https://ebird.org/me/view/checklist/S48029483)

Click here for MAP