So the 2006 ABA Convention is history! It was a great time, not just for the birds but for the birders I met or saw again, some of them for the first time in years. The convention trips as a whole turned up something like 185 species, and I saw (or heard: blasted vegetation!) around 135 myself, including

King Eider: the drake at Seawall Picnic Area in Acadia National Park.

Spruce Grouse: a life bird for me, a single male perched low in a tree atop Moosehead Mountain (I nearly missed it, snoozing in the sun).

Northern Fulmar: at least 2 light-morph birds on the pelagic trip (duh), swimming and flying at close range; a strong contender for most beautiful bird of the entire convention!

Manx Shearwater: I’d expected to see this species, but not in the numbers we had on the Thursday pelagic; there were at least 5.

Leach’s Storm-Petrel: though some 10,000 pairs breed in the area, they are usually out to sea during the day, returning only in the dark, so the 2 we had good looks at were a special treat.

American Bittern: one flying across the road in front of the van on Saturday was a major excitement for me; apologies to my sleeping passengers for waking them up!

Upland Sandpiper: moving to Arizona has meant that this bird, a familiar fixture everywhere else I’ve lived, has taken on the aura of the exotic.

Roseate Tern: decent views of a few at Petit Manan.

Arctic Tern: much more common than Roseate, this was still the “better bird” for me, as I’ve seen very few of them and those not for some time. I feel like I’m ready for the next ones that set down in southeast AZ! (May be a while, I suppose.)

Common Murre: I’d never seen this bird on the east coast before, so the small flocks at Petit Manan were a treat.

Atlantic Puffin: biggest numbers I’d ever seen, and the first time I’d ever found myself sorting through the puffins to look for something else!

Black Guillemot: always one of my favorites.

Razorbill: what can I say? The most elegant member of a family of snazzy dressers.

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher: numbers were lower than on my last visit to Maine, but it was still great to watch these little lemony guys singing away in the boreal forest.

Alder Flycatcher: I still react to this bird as if to a rarity, even in areas (like Maine) where it is common, conspicuous, and confiding. First time I’d ever stayed in a hotel where this bird was audible from the parking lot!

Boreal Chickadee: hands down the winner of the cutest-bird-ever award.

Tufted Titmouse: a bird singing at Newman Hill pond was apparently a good record for that far north in Maine.

Veery: the most romantic voice of the eastern forests, hypnotic in the dim light of dawn.

Swainson’s Thrush: the most beautiful of all the Catharus songs, and one I hadn’t heard for a couple of years.

Bicknell’s Thrush: stood us up, more or less, on Moosehead, but still a great bird to tick off.

Canada Warbler: great looks at this wonderful Wilsonia, one of 17 species of parulid for the week.

Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrow: singing birds at Reid State Park were nice, though I have to admit that they really can’t hold a candle to the orange birds of the prairies.

Dark-eyed Junco: singing Slate-coloreds! Sometimes, just sometimes, I do miss the east.

Bobolink: spank-spink, Bobolink, in hayfields and on roadside wires; I was left wondering whether the bird is common enough and familiar enough today for anyone to bother writing a poem about it anymore.

Purple Finch: that song, in bogs and forests and wooded suburbs. My favorite sighting of this common bird was at a feeder on Kittridge Road–with House Finches singing from the wires across the street! Old Maine and new, the past and the future.

And I would be remiss not to note the mammals: Humpback Whale, Moose, Woodchuck, and the most wonderful Red Squirrels and Eastern Chipmunks ever. But none of them can beat Snowshoe Hares loping away from us on bog boardwalks and in oceanside forests.