Saturday, December 26, 2009

Northern Hawk Owls and a European Goldfinch


A bunch of interesting birds have been seen in northern Maine lately boding well for the Christmas Bird Count in Presque Isle next Saturday.

Always an exciting find, Northern Hawk Owls were seen on the 20th in Littleton and 24th a little further north in Blaine. The first hawk owl was spotted just off of Route 1 by observant birder from Massachusetts as he was returning from a weekend of cross country ski competitions at the Nordic Heritage Center in PI. Though the birder didn't have any binoculars with him, he recognized that this was a rare bird anywhere in New England and managed to use the optics at hand (his digital and video cameras) to document the owl! A link to a map location of the bird is here:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=p&z=13&q=46.2666469,-67.8400612&ll=46.2666469,-67.8400612

After I sent the news of the Littleton owl around to some of Aroostook counties birders, Ken Lamb raised the ante with some gorgeous photos of another Hawk-Owl he found. The bird was hunting from a snag on the Pierce Road in Blaine just south of Mars Hill. The owl shown here is Ken's bird.

Derek Lovitch, owner of the Freeport Wild Bird Supply store, noted that there have been a "buttload" of early Northern Hawk Owl reports from northern states to our west and that this may indeed be winter with unusually high numbers of wintering hawk-owls.... Since these are active during the day and fairly easy to see, we should all be keeping an eye out for these over the next few months.

While these hawk owls were exciting, a Christmas Day visitor to Sue and Bob Pinette's feeder in Presque Isle was even more unusual. Sue discovered a gorgeous male European Goldfinch amongst the common American Goldfinches that are visiting her feeders. She was able to get a couple photos of the strikingly plumaged bird as it fed.

The European Goldfinch is a bonafide rarity, with only dozen or so records in Maine and just one previous record here in the county. However, this species is imported and kept as a cage bird in North American so its just about impossible to tell whether or not the bird is a true vagrant from its natural range in Europe and Asia or an escapee. The fact that this individual is surviving a northern Maine winter on its own would seem to indicate that this bird knows more than the average cage bird.... Cool bird no matter the origin!

Other good stuff recently seen included Paul Cyrs report and photo of Maine's hardiest Wild Turkey flock. The birds were recently spotted feeding on a piece of windswept ground just west of Presque Isle in Castle Hill.

A lingering Common Grackle looks determined to get tallied on the CBC next Saturday. The bird has been visiting Alice Sheppards feeder near Mantle Lake Park in Presque Isle.

6 comments:

Larry said...

Some great birds. Hopefully some of those owls will decide to head a little futher south.

Bill Sheehan said...

Just heard about another Hawk Owl in the area... Looks like we have some to spare!

Renee said...

I think that if I peeked out and saw a European Goldfinch in my feeder I would probably hurt myself trying to figure out what it was. I found tons of reported instances of them on the 'nets - I guess they are really hardy birds that could easily handle a Maine winter. I still think it's crazy! :)

Kim said...

That Northern Hawk Owl is on my top target list for next year so glad they are being seen in New England and have to agree with Larry in hopes it travels a little more in our direction. Great pictures by the way!

AFTERMATH said...

Humbling NHO shots, honestly! Suppose they get porcupine quills in 'em?

Dale Forbes said...

great owl photo!