by Britney Fox

With spring migration winding down considerably, the Maine Young Birders spent a beautiful morning at Evergreen Cemetery catching up with some late migrants and observing many species who use Evergreen as their nesting grounds. While the group waited for all the participants, we were treated to a family of mallards with their very young ducklings. We watched the young ducklings toddle around near the smaller ponds and later caught up with two additional mallard families, each with young of various ages. The mallard families seemed to be sticking to the smaller ponds as our group spotted many large snapping turtles in every body of water. We were all entranced by one large snapper poking their head above the water, giving everyone a unique view of this animal’s very prehistoric looking face.

While checking out the ponds, we spotted a wood duck pair and heard several species singing and calling including eastern kingbird, great-crested flycatcher, and red-eyed vireos– all of which are establishing nesting territories in the cemetery to raise their young. As we made our way into the wooded trails, our group was able to spot a great-crested flycatcher who was giving some modest looks before flying from tree to tree. We heard several species of warbler including American redstarts, ovenbirds, a pine warbler, as well as black-throated green warblers.

Perhaps our best migrant spotting of the day was a male Canada warbler flitting around deep in some brush with a magnolia warbler accompanying him. We also heard and spotted an eastern wood pewee flycatching at the top of a pine tree. We searched for the barred owl family who nested in the cemetery, specifically the barred owl fledgling, to no avail.

Overall, our group saw 40 different species and you can see a full list of the species seen on our trip here: https://ebird.org/checklist/S178617964.

Stay tuned for our next trip announcement coming soon!