Birding Scarborough Marsh Maine, part 2

While in Maine we stopped at Scarborough Marsh, a premier birding spot, just below Portland, that's Maine's largest contiguous salt marsh at 3,100 acres. There's a wonderful, long, dirt trail that leads out over the marsh. Here's Don scanning for birds. What a beautiful sunny day it was, a rarity, given the bad weather that has prevailed this summer. It felt so good to be surrounded by the beauty, sun and warmth.

Don is looking out from the big bridge that's on the trail. Be sure to stop at Scarborough Marsh Maine Audubon Center, where you can get info., maps and rent kayaks to explore the marsh.

One of the highlights was seeing a Glossy Ibis, not that common up in New England. We see many more in Florida, where this photo was taken. The one we saw on the marsh was too distant to photograph.

Savannah Sparrows were everywhere! We could hear their buzzy "sip, sip see-say" songs. Losk for the usual yellow front of the eyebrow to help in their ID.

Song Sparrows were abundant. Then again, there is so much marshy, grassy habitat to support these sparrow species. Birders also look for Nelson's and Sharp-tailed Saltmarsh Sparrows here. Shorebirds were just starting to arrive on migration at the marsh, but you need to see them at low tide, when the mud flats are exposed. We were there at high tide.

Just about anywhere you go along the coast of Maine, you'll see Common Eiders. Here's a female in flight.

A trip to lower Maine wouldn't be complete without a trip to the famous, Nunan's Lobster Hut, in Porpoise Cove, one of our favorite places to eat lobster. It's a tiny shack over the water, with long tables inside and a big sink against the wall where you can wash up after devouring your yummy boiled lobster. We each had the twin lobster special of two 1 1/4 lb. lobsters.

You can't beat Bertha Nunan's blueberry pie (now made by her daugher-in-law since her passing). It's some of the best we've ever had. The light, flaky, sugar-dusted crust, so thin you can see the veins of lucious, small, wild Maine blueberries beneath, is seasoned with just enough sugar and cinnamon to play second fiddle to the blueberrys' true flavor. Topped with creamy, pale yellow, not white, vanilla ice cream, the kind we remember from our childhood equals, Yuuummmm!

At one point, I walked out onto a rocking, wooden fishing, pier and spied two eiders in the harbor. I did not have my camera at that moment, but I had my binoculars. So the photographer in me came out.

I had my Blackberry phone with me, so I tried something new. I focused the eider in my binoculars, then took them down from my eyes and held the cell phone's camera to the binoculars and photographed the eider through the binos. Maybe it should be called a cell-ocular photo. Sorta like digiscoping, but with a phone and binoculars instead of a scope and camera. Not the best photo, but then again it was taken while standing on a rocking, pontoon fishing pier, with my cell phone through my binoculars. For a rare bird documentation, in a pinch, it might do.