MENU: Click on desired link to JUMP directly to particular section
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.
Click here for MAP
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.
Click here for WEST QUODY LIGHTHOUSE LOCATION (MAP)
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.
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)
Click here for FULL CHECKLIST in eBird
(https://ebird.org/me/view/checklist/S48014666)
Click here for MAP
Black-and-white Warbler. This was a new bird for me.
PACIFIC LOON! Doug got very excited when he realized this bird that
one of the men in our group pointed out to him as a Loon,
was not just any old Loon but a PACIFIC LOON. After getting all of us
on the bird, Doug ran off down the beach to get closer to it for a
good enough photograph to document it for the eBird reviewers.
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.