Last weekend, Tricia and I spent five days on Monhegan Island, off the coast of Maine. It was our third time on the island, and I have to say that it is probably my all-time favorite vacation spot, which is a little bit ironic because the birding consists largely of songbirds, which readers may know is not my most favorite type of birding. But the island is such a refreshing place to be – I love getting on the ferry, leaving the car behind, and having this small, beautiful, birdy island to explore on foot for the the next several days.
It was our first visit to the island in the springtime, and the birds did not disappoint. Including three additional species from ferry rides, I had a total of 74 species -I’ve included my list of all species observed on the island at the bottom of this post. Over two thirds of all species were songbirds, with (16) of them being warblers. I felt pretty good about the number of birds I observed – I know I missed several species through word of mouth and also birds that the Merlin app heard but I did not pick up on, but overall I thought I did pretty well.
In a twist, the highlight of the trip was not songbird related. On Saturday afternoon, after a full morning of birding, I went to the Monhegan Brewery to enjoy a cold beer and some deep-fried pickles. While I was enjoying my lunch, I noticed a distant, interesting bird in flight. I grabbed my binoculars and got on the bird – it was a raptor with a striped wedge-shaped tail. Almost as soon as I got on the bird, my view was obstructed by a building. I jumped up, camera in hand, and tried to pick it up again on the other side of the building, but did not have any luck. The only bird (to my mind) that fit the bill was Mississippi Kite, but that seemed very unlikely – we were on an island ten miles off the coast of Maine! I finished up my lunch quickly and headed in the direction I’d seen the bird. I ran into another birder (Emily) and asked if she’d seen any interesting raptors, and she had, and described a light colored raptor with a white head! We were both floored at the possibility. I mentioned that I was pretty sure on a small island chock full of birders, someone else would have seen that bird and gotten some photos. The next day I ran into Emily again, and she confirmed my suspicions – the bird had been reported with photos! I couldn’t help but feel the pangs of disappointment of not getting any photos, but it was still a very exciting development. Fast forward to Tuesday – the day we were leaving the island. I took a break from packing my bags and went out on the side porch of the Monhegan House hotel where we were staying. I saw an interesting bird flying south and asked Tricia to grab my camera from the room while I tried to stay on it. The bird eventually turned around and flew nearly directly overhead allowing for some terribly backlit, but still very exciting photos:
I was thrilled to get a second chance to document the bird. I don’t love the photos, but what can you do. From what I heard, the initial sitings on 05/23/26 were the first ever report of Mississippi Kite on Monhegan Island.
Other excitement for me included seeing and hearing plenty of Red Crossbills. For us in the Hudson Valley, it’s a rare treat to get a Red Crossbills, but I think the locals consider this a garbage bird for Monhegan Island, lol. I was excited to get the opportunity to see and photograph them up close.
Another interesting thing about birding on Monhegan Island is that the place is loaded with Ring-necked Pheasants. The birds breed there, I’ve photographed their young before and again during this trip. It’s curious to me that eBird still lists them as Exotic/Escapee; I’m not sure how that works.
The ferry ride back to the mainland proved to be exciting and was the icing on the cake for the trip. First I had a distant, unidentified shearwater. I could not get on the bird with my camera unfortunately, so a little bit frustrating, but also pretty exciting. And then, a little bit later, I was able to locate and photograph a single Atlantic Puffin! This was a fantastic way to end a great trip.
As always, I took loads of photos, so enjoy a sampling:
