Acadia National Park

Another rainy day, periods of drizzle alternating with patches of mist so fine that we could even get out of the vehicles once in a while. The dim skies let the birds sing longer into the morning than they would have on a clear day, so our late start didn’t hurt us in the least. “Late,” by the way, only by the idiosyncratic standards of an ABA Convention: we were in the van by 5:00!

We ran out Kittridge Road to start, where we were able to bird from the cars, and found most of the species we’d seen yesterday morning, including Bobolink and Indigo Bunting. The owners of a well-visited feeder, yesterday proud and eager to have us admire their birds, seemed to have changed their mind overnight: where they’d been all smiles and hospitality when Darlene talked to them yesterday morning, today when we pulled up they opened the front door and let out a snarling, barking, chain-straining brute of a toy poodle. Retreat: hasty.

On down the coast to Acadia. The wet weather meant that there was no real reason to visit some of the sites we’d scouted last week, and instead, with Turk in the lead, we headed straight for the Seawall Picnic Area. There were several hundred Common Eider in residence, including several new broods, and a careful scan of the largest gang produced 5 Black Scoters, a good enough bird for summer. But as we were admiring the sleeping scoters, Jane caught up with us to say they’d found the King Eider. And there he was, head tucked in a flock of half a dozen Common Eider just offshore. We watched him for half an hour, as other groups of ABA’ers came and went, and were rewarded eventually with good views of the bill and head when he awoke for moments at a time. A life bird for many of the participants, of course, and, ironically, the farthest north I’d ever seen one: all my other sightings had been in New Jersey or Massachusetts.