Birdwalk Highlights for 11/7: Farms and Fields Tour

With a small group and snotty weather, we swung for the fences today, hoping for grassland birds or rare geese, or, well, much of anything. And sometimes, when you swing for the fences, you strike out.

We got off to a good start with an impressive kettle of 42 TURKEY VULTURES soaring over downtown Yarmouth. We pulled over for them, just to check, and had a BALD EAGLE fly by. Then, arriving at Thornhurst Farm, we had a lot of gulls: 686 RING-BILLED GULLS but only about 6 HERRING GULLS among them, and nothing rare (we checked!). A mere 20 CANADA GEESE were present, and we had a couple of COMMON RAVENS and 10 DARK-EYED JUNCOS that flushed off the roadside.

However, the only grassland denizen we had was one heard-only HORNED LARK, while one participant spotted a small distant flock in the fields beyond it on Mayall Road in Gray/New Gloucester. 64 more Canada Geese and another 100 or so AMERICAN CROWS and 6 Turkey Vultures were added to the tally.

Finally, we checked the Twin Brook Rec Area and a nearby Secret Spot as we worked for more grassland birds. Between here, en route, and all of our sites combined, our list for the day also included: 21 WILD TURKEYS, 12 BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEES, 8 BLUE JAYS, 7 EASTERN BLUEBIRDS, 4 NORTHERN CARDINALS, 4 TUFTED TITMICE, 4 AMERICAN ROBINS, 3 SONG SPARROWS, and one each of HAIRY WOODPECKER, RED-TAILED HAWK, and AMERICAN GOLDFINCH.