At the (then) thermal nadir of the season sixteen thermally challenged troopers (as it turned out), attracted as moths to light to the instructive birding of Eric Hynes, joined him January 15 after navigating to The Nubble through Arctic smoke and sea fog at subzero temperatures. We flapped arms and rolled up collars while checking out the usual marine suspects around the light for a while, before Eric began to institute his program for keeping us thawed.

Such a benign beginning: we thought his plan stopped at wind-breaks and automobile heaters with quick stops at sheltered feeders just inside The Nubble and an exposed but brief gull-check on Long Sands Beach. Thence to the beach at Stage Neck and its slightly broken-in walk through 10 inches of snow. Eric charged up the hill (less broken in) where only one of us fell into the snow, and we did, after all, see a robin.

That was warmup for the walk around the point at Seapoint Beach (where another of us fell) and a final tour through the same kind of paths at Fort Foster. In all, we saw 40 species (under-reported by Eric as 39 on the listserve, because during a pit stop after Seapoint Beach he missed the pair of mallards inside Gerrish Island).

The high points have to have been the White-winged crossbills performing at the feeders at 94 Nubble Road and four or five American Pipits at Seapoint Beach, as well as the immature Cooper’s Hawk, first spotted by Marie Jordan in a window of an old house on an island in Portsmouth Harbor and patiently confirmed by several views thereafter. A rewarding day with a week’s worth of exercise to keep us warm while looking at birds in the glorious surroundings of a glistening bright day on Maine’s southern coast.

The species list:

1. Harlequin Duck
2. Common Eider
3. White-winged Scoter
4. Black Scoter
5. Long- tailed Duck
6. Surf Scoter
7. Bufflehead
8. American Black Duck
9. Red-breasted Merganser
10. Common Goldeneye
11. Horned Grebe
12. Red-necked Grebe
13. Common Loon
14. Great Cormorant
15. Herring Gull
16. Great Black-backed Gull
17. Black Guillemot
18. Purple Sandpiper
19. Song Sparrow
20. White-winged Crosbills (9)
21. Carolina Wren
22. Red-breasted Nuthatch
23. Black-capped Chickadee
24. House Finch
25. Ring-billed Gull
26. Cedar Waxwing
27. American Robin
28. Northern Mockingbird
29. Northern Cardinal
30. House Sparrow
31. American Pipit
32. European Starling
33. Blue Jay
34. American Crow
35. Mallard
36. Cooper’s Hawk (imm)
37. Brown Creeper
38. Rock Pigeon
39. Mourning Dove
40. American Goldfinch