Outdoors
The BDN outdoors section brings readers into the woods, waters and wild places of Maine. It features stories on hunting, fishing, wildlife, conservation and recreation, told by people who live these experiences. This section emphasizes hands-on knowledge, field reports, issues, trends and the traditions that define life outside in Maine. Read more Outdoors stories here.
Maine is a welcoming state. At least, a bunch of rare birds seem to think so. This summer has been filled with unusual sightings, and we’re only halfway through the season.
This one annoys me. A bridled tern has been haunting the waters of southern Maine. It originally showed up on Eastern Egg Rock, Maine’s southernmost puffin colony. It then moved down to Stratton Island, another seabird nesting island near Scarborough.
I’m annoyed by the bridled tern because I tried hard to find one in the waters south of Key West this past March, and failed. What’s a tropical seabird doing up here?
One good tern deserves another. A gull-billed tern was sighted several times in the Popham Beach area earlier this month. I’ve only seen two in my lifetime, neither one in Maine. As the name implies, this tern has a shorter, thicker bill than other terns. They rarely get north of New Jersey.
A Forster’s tern has been spotted a few times in southern Maine. This bird is common south of Massachusetts, and regularly wanders north in late summer. It rarely does so in early summer. I’ve personally seen only one in Maine, though I admit to not trying very hard.
I’ve never seen a royal tern in Maine either. They are relatively common south of New England, and a few venture up here regularly. One wandered over to Matinicus Rock last Thursday, just five days after I visited Matinicus Rock during an all-day voyage on Bar Harbor Whale Watch, in search of Atlantic puffins and unusual ocean species.
On that same voyage, two sharp-eyed birders picked out a tufted puffin among the thousands of Atlantic puffins nesting on Machias Seal Island. It flew directly in front of the boat, displaying its black belly and unusual tufted head. But it flew by so quickly, most people missed it, including me.
The tufted puffin is especially notable among this year’s rarities. Tufted puffins nest exclusively in the northern Pacific and never, ever, come east. Except one did. It’s apparently stuck in the North Atlantic, as it has been making an annual appearance along the Maine coast for several years. It was seen on Eastern Egg Rock for weeks in June, then disappeared. At last, now we know where it went.
Here’s an interesting problem. Many birders keep life lists — a lifetime list of birds they’ve seen. Some keep multiple lists. Does a tufted puffin seen near Machias Seal Island count as a bird seen in Maine?
Machias Seal Island is claimed by both the United States and Canada. The British built the original lighthouse in 1832, and built the current lighthouse in 1914, so the Canadians maintain operations. Yet, actual sovereignty remains in dispute.
According to eBird — the app most often used by birders to maintain their lists — a bird seen on Machias Seal Island counts as a Maine bird. This matters more than you might think. It’s not just the island. The area around the island is called the “gray zone,” encompassing a disputed area of roughly 277 square miles. Presumably any rare bird seen in the zone counts as a Maine bird. And we’re about to cruise right through it.
On August 16, Bar Harbor Whale Watch is running a mega-trip across the Gulf of Maine to visit some of the most productive whale-watching waters in Nova Scotia, co-hosted by Maine Audubon and FLUKES. Brier Island and Lurcher Shoals are renowned for their abundance of birds and sea mammals. Register through Maine Audubon. You’re darn right I’m going.
This is not the first time I’ve faced the Canada/Maine conundrum. On October 6, 2021, a Sabine’s gull flew past the port side of the boat, somewhere over the Grand Manan Banks. It would have been the first I had ever seen in Maine waters — if I was in Maine waters. I’ll never know.
In the last week, other delightful surprises have turned up. A thick-billed murre spent six days off Pine Point in Scarborough. This puffin relative nests in Newfoundland, and sometimes visits Maine in winter. It’s rare in July.
Two shorebirds are unexpected summer anomalies. Baird’s sandpipers are grassland birds, more common in the midcontinental US. A few pass through Maine each August. The one being seen right now in Kettle Cove, Cape Elizabeth, is a July rarity. So is the long-billed dowitcher in Scarborough Marsh.
By late July, songbirds have gone quiet. A surge of rarities keeps birders on their toes.
