Birds of Ft. McClary

Common Loon

On December 11, 2010 Gus and I drove to Kittery, Maine looking for places to get close to the ocean so I could see what birds were about.

Fort McClary Blockhouse 12-11-10 by Kathiesbirds

As we drove along Rt. 1A we came to Fort McClary State Historic Site. We parked our car and got out. Gus had his Nikon D90 with him so I knew he would have fun photographing the scenery.  Me? I grabbed my bins and Nikon D80 with the 70-300 mm lens and went off in search of birds!

However, trying to find birds in this sea of buoys was not easy!

Scoters

These photos are admittedly horrible but are presented here only as proof that I did see Long-tailed Ducks, Life Bird # 390 for me! They also illustrate how far out the bird were from land, for even with my lens zoomed out as far as possible they are but specs in the frame. Then, I still had to crop and enlarge the shots at home on the computer. Another thing I need to learn is how to shoot photographs in such a reflective environment! In the shot below you can actually see the long tail of the male sticking out behind him in a thin black line.

Long-tailed Ducks

Scoter Silhouette

Common Loon

Abandoned Granite Blocks

(I found a Carolina Wren and a Dark-eyed Junco here)

Birds Seen at Fort McClary State Park 12-11-2010:

Location: Fort McClary State Park
Observation date: 12/11/10
Notes: Saw a large, gray raptor and 3 little finch-like birds fly out of the woods when some tourists walked up onto the path. Might possibly have been a Northern Goshawk but I only say its belly and tail as it flew away from me. I tried to follow it into the woods but could not locate it for a positive i.d.
Number of species: 11

Surf Scoter 2
Long-tailed Duck 4*
Bufflehead 3
Hooded Merganser 2
Red-breasted Merganser 4
Common Loon 2
Belted Kingfisher 1
American Crow 8
Carolina Wren 1
Northern Mockingbird 1
Dark-eyed Junco 1

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/)

* Life Bird!

Fort McClary 12-11-10