Prothonotary Warbler, Kennebunkport, ME, October 2018

Each year I make an early fall trip to southeast VT looking for sparrows and late warblers.  So as early October rolled around I made my plans for my annual VT adventure to Brattleboro and Vernon, with a multi-stop, day-long itinerary. 

But wait – the title of this post talks about Kennebunkport, ME, not VT.  How did that happen?

Literally minutes before heading out the door I remembered that not one but two Prothonotary Warblers had been spotted in the last 2 days on the southern coast of ME.  One report was just the previous afternoon in Kennebunkport.  There have been quite a number of Prothonotary’s in ME both in spring and fall the last few years, but I hadn’t had a chance to chase after any of them.  So rather than a completely speculative trip to VT, why not change my plans to chase after a recently spotted rarity just a bit farther away?  I turned my computer back on, and did a bit of research on yesterday’s Prothonotary in Kennebunkport.  And just in case that bird didn’t cooperate, I also took notes on the one seen 2 days earlier just up the coast in Scarborough.  I changed my route on the Map App to drive northeast to Kennebunkport instead of northwest to Brattleboro, and I was out the door.

After a 2-hour drive I arrived at Fishers Lane in Kennebunkport.  The location of yesterday’s sighting was pretty specific, with the observer mentioning that the bird was in brush at the end of the road near the brown canoe.  There were 3 other cars parked at the end of the road when I got there, so I was hopeful that other birders already had the bird.  After a short walk I spotted the brown canoe and then a birder nearby.  I had the right spot, now I needed the bird to cooperate. 

I approached the birder and he said he was one of the observers of the Prothonotary yesterday, and he was standing at the location of yesterday’s sighting.  He also mentioned that other birders had the target bird an hour earlier in the brush a short distance down the beach.  So I walked in that direction and soon found 3 other birders also looking for the bird.  It seemed that the bird was moving around in a reasonably small patch of brush near the beach and an adjacent freshwater wetlands.  Now to start my search.

There were at least 5 birders in this small area anxiously searching for this bright yellow bird.  Over the next hour there were numerous Yellow-rumps passing through, and I spotted a Blackpoll as well, but no Prothonotary.  Then while scanning the backside of the marsh in the distance I caught a briefest of glimpses of yellow.  I told the 2 birders I was standing next to that I may have the bird.  Then a couple seconds later the Prothonotary popped up in the open 2 feet off the ground.  By the time I said I had the bird, it dropped back in the brush again out of sight.  Unfortunately I was never able to get the other birders on it. 

It’s nice to finally check off Prothonotary Warbler for my ME list - #343 for that state.  That was the 32nd state where I’ve seen this species (the dark blue shaded states in my statebird map below).  The cross-hatched states are those in its regular range where I still need it for my statelists – I’m only missing it in 3 states where it is a non-rarity.  Plus Prothonotary can be seen as a rarity in a few other states, including ME and elsewhere in northern New England.  Though few would expect it in WA, where I found one a couple years ago as an extreme rarity.

I had set aside the whole day to find the Prothonotary, or the one found the day before.  So now that I found my target so quickly, I needed to decide what to do with the rest of the day.  First I tried to get a better view of the Prothonotary, but I spent the next 30 minutes at the Fishers Lane spot without re-finding it.  During this time I continued to notice quite a large number of Yellow-rumps in the area, and wondered if this was going to be a good fallout day.  So with some advice from other birders there, I decided to head up the coast, and first headed to Timber Point to try my luck with migrants there.  The fallout of Yellow-rumps continued at this spot as well.  I did my best to make an exact count which was 176 in the 90 minutes I was there.  I tried not to double-count any birds, but it was impossible to tell for sure since they were always coming and going, often with 5-10 in view anywhere there were shrubs and edges.  I also picked up a late Redstart, and two cooperative Swainson's Thrushes.

Then it was off to Biddeford Pool and the South Point thickets.  I had 20 more Yellow-rumps here plus a most cooperative Gray-cheeked Thrush.  Or more accurately I should say it was a Gray-cheeked/ Bicknell’s since apparently the latest ID advice is that you can’t safely separate these two species if they are not singing or in the hand.

My last stop was at the Nubble Thickets in Ogunquit where I’ve had great migrants in the past.  However, I didn't have a single warbler there!  And the only migrants were one White-throat and one Junco.  Go figure.  The highlight here was a small duck out on the ocean in a large flock of Common Eiders which turned out to be a Green-winged Teal.  A nice find at the end of a nice day of birding.

I’d like to think that I made the right decision to search for the Prothonotary in ME instead of heading to VT.  Then again, I guess I’ll never know what I might have found if I had kept with my original plans and traveled to VT instead.