Bird of the Day

Dark-eyed Juncos are the most abundant of all winter sparrows in Maine, commonly seen in small flocks around feeding stations and in a wide variety of winter habitats where they forage on the ground for seeds. In the more forested parts of New England they are also summer residents, but as spring approaches most of the rural and suburban winter flocks migrate north of the border and disperse into the Canadian forests until the next fall. Unlike the solid charcoal gray and white patterns of the male, females like the one above, are browner with the faint streaks and markings of a sparrow. Fetched in Kittery Point.

Surf Scoters are one of the three Scoters along the coasts of the Northeast. Scoters are seaducks that  breed all around the Northern Hemisphere and winter off the more temperate coasts. All of them are quite stocky and mostly dark with elaborate swollen bills that are especially pronounced and colorful in the drakes. Surf Scoters drakes have white patches around the head that give them the nickname “Skunkhead.” These two drakes have lifted off the shallow cove edging Seapoint Beach where they had been diving to the bottom for invertebrates, then circled back and sped out to sea.

American Black Ducks are common puddle ducks in these parts all year round, especially along the coast and tidal inlets. They like salt or brackish water but it’s not that unusual to see them probing around a rain puddle in a field like these two are doing, or in freshwater rivers, ponds, lakes, and swamps. Many folks assume them to be female Mallards, but Blacks are their own species and are considerably darker. They lack the white edging on the speculum (violet-blue wing patch) and white in the feathers that female Mallards have. Above is an adult pair with the drake in the front. The sexes are most easily distinguished by the bill color which is yellow in the drake and a dull olive in the female (female Mallards have orange-ish bills). American Blacks and Mallards are closely related and occasionally interbreed producing a hybrid. Fetched at Fort Foster in Kittery Point.

I found this Red-tailed Hawk scanning the embankment of Rte 236 for a snack to pounce on. The cinnamon coloring in the tail marks it as an adult (juveniles have barred tails) and I was close enough to see it was quite small as far as Red-tails go, and presume it to be a male—females are typically about 25% larger. Red-tails are the most common of winter hawks here in New England, you can often find them perched along the highway like this one, soaring above with broad wings and fanned tails, or perched in a tree at the edge of an open area. They range throughout North America and vary widely in coloration having dark and light phases with many variations in-between. All show a dark streaked band across the lighter belly and have a dark band between the wrist and shoulder on the leading edge of their wings. Fetched in Eliot, Maine.

Purple Sandpipers are regular winter residents along the rockier parts of the New England coast. At Seapoint, a small flock of 30 to 100 of them take up residence each year late in the fall and stay the winter until heading back to the Arctic come early spring. They aren’t especially shy, and one can get fairly close to them at high tide when they rest up on the larger rocks at the North side of the point. If you’re lucky, you might occasionally spot a Sanderling, Dunlin or Ruddy Turnstone mixed in with the flock.

The Song Sparrow is one of the most common American sparrows, in winter you don’t see as many in New England as in other seasons but many remain as year-round residents. Richly colored in the eastern states (coloration and song varies widely depending on geography) note the gray face with a brown eye streak, gray bill, thickly streaked breast with a central smudge, and dark stripes flanking either side of the throat. Never too far from a thicket, sexes are similar, but males often sing or lookout from low perches. Fetched from my garden steps in Kittery Point, Maine.

One of my all time favorite birds, Cedar Waxwings flock up in wintertime and roam widely in search of fruits and berries which compose the bulk of their diet. Their high-pitched jingly trills always bring a smile to my face, even when I can’t see them. From a distance they look much like a lot of what birders call LBJs (Little Brown Jobs) but close up they are strikingly beautiful with their crested heads, black face masks, silky blend of brown to yellow breast feathers, yellow (sometimes orange) tail bands, and the small beads of scarlet wax on the wings of mature adults which you can’t see in this photo. In winter flocks, keep an eye out for the larger Bohemian Waxwing which often mixes in with Cedars. They are larger and stockier, have distinctive cinnamon under-rumps, and more extensive red waxy droplets on their wings.  Fetched in Portsmouth, NH.