Wednesday, August 6, 2014

A Summer’s Day at Reid State Park

1. at the ocean-kab Back at the beginning of June I took my son to visit Reid State Park here in Maine. As he lives in Arizona, it was fun for me to show him the ocean. He has always loved it. Of course, I could not resist watching the birds! I was surprised to find a lingering Long-tailed Duck tucked between the swells!

2. long-tailed duck-kab Long-tailed Duck 6-3-14

At that time the Piping Plovers were just starting to nest and we found an Audubon Naturalist busy guarding the birds. In the efforts to protect the birds from predators they had laid an extra layer of fencing along the lower edge of the protected area but after some observation the naturalist saw that it was preventing the parents from getting into and out  of the enclosure easily, so she decided to remove it.

3. helping-kab Here she is removing the extra fencing which was overlapping the upright fencing and spilling onto the sand. The parent birds became quite distressed, but she worked as quickly as she could and soon moved away.

4. distressed-kab The Piping Plover parents then ran easily back to their nest.

 

5. piping plover-kab Peaceful Parent Plover

I have not been back to Reid State Park since June 3rd, so I do not know if this nest was successful. At that time I was still getting use to seeing these Eastern shorebirds, so when I saw the bird below I got all excited because I did not recognize it at first. But when the bird moved and eventually flew away revealing its gorgeous underwings, I knew that I was seeing…

6. willet-kab an Eastern Willet!

I also saw this gorgeous male Common Eider in the cove and I was thinking I couldn’t wait to show it to Chris Rohrer when he arrived. Little did I know that the males would soon be molting and very hard to find! Once Chris got here all we saw were female Common Eiders with ducklings!

7. common eider-kab Male Common Eider 6-3-2014

There will be more posts coming soon with further stories of Our Big New England Birding Adventure! Meanwhile, my post is going up on Birding is Fun on August 7th. In other news, I was recently contacted by Metis Birding. They invited me to share my photos and my blog on their Facebook Page starting on Sunday. I encourage you to check it out! And, once again, there is poetry happening at Kathie’s Poet Tree!

Links:

8. willet-kab

17 comments:

  1. Love the deep blue sea and the waders. great that they are protecting the P.Plovers. Love the Eider.

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  2. You are one busy lady! (BTW: You need to edit the link to Metis Birding's FB page. It doesn't work because it also includes this blog's URL.)

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    1. Marvin, thanks for the head's up! It's fixed! And yes, I am very busy!

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  3. Ahh, your post about Reid State Park brings back lots of fond memories. Lovely photos!

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    1. Thanks Karen! I need to go back there. I love that place!

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  4. A wonderful read Kathie and I loved the photos. It does the heart good to know that the nesting plovers were being well taken care of.

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    1. Denise, yes it does! Such sweet and fragile birds!

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  5. You certainly get a variety of birds in your new area, and I can imagine how your son from Arizona would enjoy the ocean!

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    1. Happy wanderer, he really does. I enjoyed my time with him!

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  6. Very nice shot of the male Common Eider. Yeah it was a weird experience only finding the rare molting male. There were two around Eastern Egg Island and the port but they didn't look like that stunning pic. Such a beautiful area to bird. I hope he gets another chance to go again this year or next during fall. That would be very beautiful!

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    1. Chris, I hope you get to come back and at a different time and see more birds! I wish I had taken you to this place! Ah, but the time ran out!

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  7. Spectacular birds, Kathie! The two ocean ducks are phenomenal and Piping Plovers up close - you are spoiled!

    It seems like there are a lot of the same birds in Maine and Minnesota, but I think you edged us out with this post. Well done.

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    1. Josh, some of the same and some different. We are not getting Blue Grosbeaks here!

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  8. Great birding Kathie! And thank you for sharing our information with your readers. We are very excited to share your work on our page this week! www.facebook.com/metisbirding

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  9. I am so happy that you are enjoying all the beautiful shore birds Kathie.

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Welcome to my nest! I hope you will enjoy spending time here with me and the birds. Thank you for your comments. I will try to get back to you as soon as I get back from counting more birds.