All the extra rain last spring appears to have helped provide great habitat opportunities for Maine birds.
Our old friend Allie Ladd of Byron recently shared some videos that feature four different species that bird lovers won’t want to miss as they make themselves at home in western Maine.
In the opening piece, there is a large number of Canada geese bobbing in the pond. Ladd said the appearance of the large birds and their numbers are both noteworthy.
“One video I counted 30. Good thing they don’t eat fish,” Ladd said in a Facebook post. “The first and last time that I saw geese here was Saturday, Nov. 23, 1963 — The morning after President John Kennedy was assassinated.”
The second act of today’s compilation features two more bird species that are comfortable in and around the water. A great blue heron creeps quietly and carefully across an old log under the watchful eye of two common mergansers, a male (left) and a female.
All three appear to get along well.
The third video segment disproves, yet again, the contention that turkeys don’t fly. Adult birds actually can remain airborne for extended periods, especially after being flushed from their roosts by turkey hunters who encroached on them.
In the video the female turkey has no problem crossing the half-wrecked beaver dam by strutting across the spot where the water is running through. The polts aren’t very old, but their instincts obviously tell them that a short flight over that spot will enable them not only to keep up with their mother, but to remain dry in the process.
Many thanks to Allie Ladd for providing more videos of Maine wildlife and showing us what they’re up to when nobody is looking!
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