From the outdoors

Spring brings the Midcoast’s first seasonal wildlife sightings

Wed, 04/16/2014 - 12:45pm

It's been said that spring arrives begrudgingly in Maine, and that seems frustratingly true this year. Nonetheless, my dear friend Kristen Lindquist reported seeing the first 2014 turkey vultures soaring above Mt. Battie in late February. Fifty years ago, Maine's farm families and the relatively few urban birders eagerly awaited and welcomed the first spring migrants in March. The arrival of red-winged blackbirds, common grackles and American woodcock served as harbingers of spring. Turkey vultures have since been added to the list of early Maine migrants.

Today, vultures are fairly common statewide. That wasn't true in the late 1970s, when Maine's first documented breeding record of turkey vultures occurred in the Camden area. The large birds, with 6-foot wingspans, are one of the few Maine birds with highly developed olfactory glands. The part of the vulture's brain responsible for processing smells is particularly large, compared to other birds. It's an adaptation that comes in handy for finding carrion hidden beneath dense foliage. In 1972 my University of New Hampshire ornithology professor put a positive spin on the ugly looking, road-kill eating vultures by stating, "Think of them fondly as nature's sanitary engineers!"

Waterfowl

As soon as ice began breaking up on Megunticook Lake, migrating hooded mergansers, buffleheads, ring-necked ducks and Canada geese took advantage of the small amount of open water. Now that there's more open water, common loons are showing up on Megunticook and other Midcoast bodies of water. Unlike dabbling ducks though, loons require large stretches of open water to act as runways for takeoffs, since their legs and webbed feet are right next to their butt. The posterior position of their legs is a great advantage for diving to depths of 200-feet, but a big disadvantage for taking flight in little pockets of water or for walking on land. You shouldn't feel badly for loons though since most of the ones nesting in the Midcoast travel relatively short distances from their wintering grounds in nearby ocean waters, where they dive for fish, lobsters, and crabs.

Songbirds

In early April my first bluebird of the season sang from a telephone wire outside my bedroom window. He wasn't fazed that it was snowing or that temperatures were struggling to reach the upper 30s. Love, or in his case, testosterone, is a powerful motivator to find a suitable mate. The last time I saw him he was still single. Females usually arrive in Maine a few weeks later than males, which is true of most songbirds.

My first song sparrow of the season sang in early March. Years ago, before climate change, song sparrows always arrived at my parent's yard in Oakland on March 21. You could count on it, not a day later or a day earlier. My mother circled the "sparrow arrival" date on the kitchen calendar and in early March she'd teach me to count down to the 21st. In the early 1960s, my mother seemed like a mysterious prophet for her uncanny ability to predict when the first song sparrow would sing from our leafless lilac bush. She had eyes in the back of her head and could also seemingly look into the future.

American woodcock

The American woodcock arrived back in Camden this year a few weeks ago. If you haven't seen their courtship flights, you're missing out on one of nature's truly remarkable spectacles. Fields next to alders or thickets are optimum places to observe woodcock flight displays. It's best to arrive at dusk and listen carefully for the peent calls of males seeking out females. A flashlight will help you locate the singing male. If you're patient and remain quiet, the peenting bird will sit for several minutes before flying in a wide arc above you over the field. While the male is airborne, a ground dwelling female – one you can't see - is judging the male's flight and his suitability as a potential mate. By falling from the sky like a leaf blown by the wind, male woodcock are auditioning to be a female's mate. Woodcock viewing in April is a great family activity. My 37-year-old son still talks about the night three decades ago that he and his friends joined me to observe the woodcock's mating flights.

Raptors

On April 13, my first osprey of the season soared over Camden Harbor. I stood on the library lawn and lost myself for a few minutes watching the bird wheel and cry in the sky. Many of Maine's ospreys winter in the Caribbean and South America.

That same day around midnight, I awoke to the sound of a saw-whet owl calling in the alders near Megunticook River, about 1/4-mile from my bedroom. A hooting barred owl ended the saw-whet's love songs. Continuing would have revealed his location to a hungry barred owl.

What can we expect to see and hear of wildlife in the weeks ahead?

Wood frogs and spotted salamanders are now mating in vernal pools from Thomaston to Belfast and beyond. A few nights each spring, triggered by warm April rains, wood frogs and spotted salamanders march en masse to breed in small puddles in the woods. Herpetologists call the event "Big Night." Although salamanders are silent, wood frog vocalizations resemble a chorus of quacking ducks.

In late April, the trickle of returning birds — namely ruby-crowned kinglets, black and white warblers, pine warblers and yellow-rumped warblers, among others — will become a river of hundreds of thousands of nocturnal migrating birds in mid-May. Among the late May arrivals in the Midcoast will be blackburnian warblers, blackpolls, great-crested flycatchers and other long-distance migrants that winter in Central and South America. Many migrants will stop here for a few days to rest and feed, before winging their way north to the great spruce-fir forests of Canada.


Ron Joseph is a retired Maine wildlife biologist. He was raised in Waterville and now lives in Camden.