The weather in October was awesome. Obviously, I went birding. But where?
Most songbirds have headed south, save for lingering flocks of hardy yellow-rumped warblers. They’re usually the last to leave. If Maine’s weather keeps warming up like this, the day may come when they don’t bother to migrate at all.
Late October has been so mild, waterfowl haven’t moved around much. Duck-watching didn’t look like a good option. It’s been good weather for upland game bird hunting, so I expected some of my favorite woodland roads to be a little crowded.
Where else could I expect good birding in late October?
Farm fields. This time of year, some of the best birding happens along hedgerows and weedy field edges, where food for migrating seed-eaters is plentiful. Multiple species of sparrows and dark-eyed juncos often forage together in big flocks.
Better yet, birds that nest on arctic tundra pass through Maine in late October and early November. Tundra birds have no use for trees. When they flee the soon-to-be-frozen north, they seek out treeless fields, blueberry barrens and mudflats on their southward migration.
With plans to meet up with friends from Skowhegan, our destination became obvious a week ago. We expected to find good birding around the sprawling dairy farms in Clinton and Fairfield. In particular, we hoped to find sizable flocks of American pipits.
Bingo. We parked the car on the side of a dirt road. The first few hundred yards of walking were quiet. Then the American pipits swarmed in.
Our timing couldn’t have been better. Corn fields had been reduced to stubble. Composted manure covered the ground. Bits of fallen corn and undigested grain in cow poop present a banquet table to southbound vegetarians.
We estimated 200 pipits gallivanting around that first field, with more to follow at the next.
American pipits nest across the top of North America and in the higher elevations of the Rockies. They also breed in the tundra habitat atop Maine’s Katahdin and New Hampshire’s Mount Washington. Pipits winter across southern states and Mexico.
Birds that migrate in flocks are typically noisy. It keeps them together. American pipits are particularly vocal, chirping the “pipit, pipit” call for which they are named. I often hear them passing overhead in the fall, and I figured we’d spot some in the farm fields.
I didn’t expect to find so many.
To survive in icy breeding terrain, pipits have a long hind toe and nail. It helps them forage on slippery surfaces. They also have a long, thin bill, which is typical of birds that dine primarily on insects.
In autumn, pipits switch to a diet of small seeds and other vegetative matter — exactly the kind of food that might be found in a field recently topped with manure.
Snow buntings are arriving too. Buntings nest even farther north than pipits, so they tend to arrive a little later. Since they share the same fondness for tundra habitat, they’re found in the same places in Maine, especially blueberry barrens and farm fields.
Horned larks should be popping up. They are also field birds, though somewhat less suited to tundra. Horned larks breed across much of North America, primarily west of New England.
I don’t know what they have against Maine, because they should be nesting here too. They nest in Québec, not far north of Aroostook County, and often join other species passing through Maine at this time of year.
Lapland longspurs are less commonly seen in migration, but these small tundra birds occasionally appear in mid-to-late fall. Several have been reported already.
That’s what makes autumn birding fun. Anything can happen anywhere, as birds from the far north migrate south.
Don’t neglect unpaved roads. Although tundra birds prefer Maine fields and mudflats while passing through, dirt roads will do in a pinch.
I’m often surprised to see them on logging roads this time of year, but I shouldn’t be. These birds spend their lives picking up seeds from soil and gravel. There’s plenty of food wafting into the roads from the weeds adjacent to the drainage ditches.
Low water levels in northern Maine lakes reveal acres of mudflat in autumn. Yup, this is another good place to anticipate tundra migrants.
I predicted to my friends that we would find American pipits in the Clinton farm fields, and we did. Sometimes, the birds make me look smart. It makes up for all the other times they make me look stupid.
