Maine has great birding wherever you go, but to fully appreciate everything our state has to offer, get offshore.
That’s what a boatload of birders from 16 states did last Sunday, coming from as far away as Alaska.
Maine Audubon enjoyed stunning weather and glassy seas for its annual trip into the Gulf of Maine with Bar Harbor Whale Watch. Birders took over the Friendship V for six hours of pelagic (i.e., open ocean) birding. For 30 years, Maine Audubon has been taking people out to see birds that don’t typically approach land.
Participants watched hundreds of northern gannets. These giant plunge-divers nest in enormous colonies in Quebec and Newfoundland, then plunder Maine waters as they migrate southward in autumn.
More than 100 each of Atlantic puffins, Wilson’s storm-petrels and red-necked phalaropes made the list, along with an unusually high number of lesser black-backed gulls.
Several land birds whizzed by the boat, presumably crossing the gulf from Nova Scotia. The ocean is not normally a place to look for a northern waterthrush, mourning warbler, yellow-bellied flycatcher or scarlet tanager.
I’ve taken this trip multiple times over the years, but this was the first time I’ve seen long-tailed jaegers on the east coast. Pomarine jaegers are usually plentiful on the trip, with lower numbers of parasitic jaegers. But long-tailed jaegers are scarce here. They migrate to Ecuador, and tend to stay farther out to sea than their cousins.
All three jaegers nest in Arctic tundra, where they dine primarily on lemmings, insects and small birds all summer. In migration, they feed by harassing other seabirds and stealing their food. So does their bigger cousin, the south polar skua. A few of these Antarctic bullies come up here in summer (their winter). One of them put on a great show for the boat passengers.
As good as this pelagic trip was, it was not the highlight in my adventurous week of offshore birding. That occurred Tuesday in Head Harbor Passage, the channel that separates the United States from Canada between Eastport and Campobello Island.
I’ve been telling readers for years that this channel in late summer is unlike anywhere else in the East.
The tide is so strong in Head Harbor Passage that it generates the largest whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere, the Old Sow. The tidal torrent churns up massive amounts of food for wildlife. Whales, porpoises and seals crowd into the channel to take advantage. So do the birds. Tens of thousands of birds. It’s a world-class spectacle.
I get out on the Eastport Windjammers whale watch at least once every summer, and I never miss a chance to get on board with Capt. Butch Harris. But I’ve been on the lookout for a smaller boat in Eastport that could be chartered to focus on birds. Finally, I found one.
Eastport Charters is new this year. Capt. Kinny Corthell’s boat is just big enough for six passengers. Powered by twin 300-horsepower outboards, it can chase down elusive rarities on the wing. And we did.
Five of us met the boat on a clear and windless morning. A full moon meant the strongest possible tides. Our dawn departure timed the rising tide to catch the birds at their most active. Everything was utterly perfect.
I’ve been into Head Harbor Passage many times over the years, but I’ve never seen a spectacle this big. More than 10,000 Bonaparte’s gulls swirled in every direction. Black-legged kittiwake numbers far exceeded normal. Eagles gathered by the dozens. Great cormorants typically hang out in small numbers, but we spotted dozens.
Clearly, the food supply in the channel was more plentiful than ever.
Although our quintet of hardcore birders was justifiably stunned by the bird abundance, we were really looking for three needles in the haystack. There are six species of gull in North America that have black heads. Five of them can be in Head Harbor Passage this time of year.
Hiding amid the profusion of Bonaparte’s gulls and smattering of laughing gulls, we hoped to locate a Sabine’s gull — an Arctic gull that nests primarily in the West. Failing that, we hoped for a little gull or black-headed gull — Eurasian gulls that have established small colonies in the Arctic regions of North America.
Finding even one is a Herculean task. We found all three.
If I made a list of all the boat trips I’ve taken in my life, this adventure on Eastport Charters would make the Top Five. And the season’s not over.
