Birding March 16, 2024

The day started off with a Midcoast Audubon field trip to Salt Bay, Damariscotta, ME, led by Jeff Cherry and Mael Glon.

Photos by Steve Branam. You can click on any photo to bring up a gallery of all of them.

It also started off foggy, so we didn't get to see much. We did see these domestic geese:

We headed over to Salt Bay Farm on the other side of the bay, part of the Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust. This is a beautiful area, combining open grass field, marsh, salt marsh, forest, and waterfront, with all their interstitial zones.

This Northern pintail duck was in the marsh pond. He was dabbling (dunking his head under), so his head is wet and shiny. That's why he looks plastic:

Duck butt!

There was a male bufflehead in with him:

Red wing blackbird in the cattails:

Moving over to the bay side of the farm, we could see this bald eagle nesting on her eggs in a tree out on a small island (her mate was perched atop a nearby pole watching over):

We could see a large group of merganser ducks at the upper end of the bay:

Goldeneye ducks:

Bufflehead ducks:

After the field trip, we saw this loon on the Damariscotta River in East Boothbay: