Climatologists have warned for years that rising temperatures increase the frequency and severity of storms. The four powerful storms that have hit the Maine coast since Hurricane Lee in September 2023, including gale-force winds on Wednesday, are moving around a lot of birds.
The weirdest bird is currently visiting a feeder in Stockton Springs, where a hepatic tanager has been thrilling local birders for more than a week.
Hepatic tanagers are similar to Maine’s scarlet tanagers, though without the black wings. Their reddish color is interrupted by liver-colored patches, hence the name. Their range includes most of South America, much of Central America and Mexico, and just over the border into Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
I’ve only seen one, and that was on May 27, 1997, in Big Bend National Park in Texas. The hepatic tanager in Stockton Springs is the first ever recorded in Maine.
It’s been a season of anomalies. Two western tanagers are in the state. One was documented on New Year’s Day in Lubec. Another has been visiting a feeder in Portland for the last week. This species nests exclusively west of the Mississippi.
By now, scores of birders have visited a spotted towhee that’s been hanging around Fort Foster in Kittery all winter. In summer, the nearest spotted towhees are found along the western edge of North and South Dakota and most of New Mexico.
They look and act much like Maine’s eastern towhees, but rarely wander into New England.
Besides the bird currently in Kittery, the only other spotted towhee documented by eBird in the last decade was discovered in Bristol, Massachusetts, in 2020.
On Jan. 3, a Townsend’s warbler was the highlight of this year’s Christmas Bird Count in Ogunquit. You’d have to drive to western Texas to find the bird’s nesting site nearest to Maine.
To be scientifically precise, some rare birds may have arrived for non-weather-related reasons. Some species are prone to wandering, even without the benefit of unexpected winds. Some have a rare genetic defect that messes up their navigational skills.
Some are just freaks. The Steller’s sea-eagle that astonished Mainers in the last two winters wandered from Asia to Alaska to Texas to Maine, and no storm can be blamed for that.
Incidentally, the bird is doing fine. It spent the summer in Newfoundland and was still present in Codroy Valley earlier this week. We may yet see it again this winter.
Nonetheless, the storms are creating havoc. The storm just before Christmas caught dovekies by surprise and blew many ashore.
This tiny relative of the puffin is an Arctic bird that sometimes moves into the Gulf of Maine in winter, though usually far offshore. In the aftermath of the storm, many were rescued in southern Maine, but many more perished.
The storm was so powerful, one dovekie was blown all the way to Vermont.
The storms that hit Maine multiple times since September didn’t stop here. North American birds have been showing up in Great Britain in record numbers this year, clearly storm-driven. Some made it to land. Most fell into the ocean.
Politicians can argue about whether climate change is real. Arguing is what politicians do. But most of us are noticing seasonal changes. It’s already the second week in January, and the ice-fishing and snowmobile seasons are off to a slow start.
Without even realizing it, Mainers are adapting to change. During my last four-day power outage, I took a walk down my road. Of the 30 houses along the way, only two don’t have generators.
That includes mine.
As I write this column during the windstorm on Wednesday morning, I’m hurrying to get it off to my editor before I lose power. Again.
