Arlene yelled, “Pine grosbeak!” from the kitchen in Casco.
That’s a bird we’ve never before had a good look at. Once or twice on group birding trips someone has called them, we’ve gotten our binoculars on something kind of far away and said, “OK.” Normally they live farther north, but people have been seeing lots of them in both Massachusetts and Maine the last few weeks. This one was in the crabapple tree outside the kitchen window.
After I looked for a while, I checked the bird book. The photo checked perfectly, and the book said they were very tame birds. Hey! Maybe it won’t mind if I walk out and try to take a picture. It didn’t. I got the following four (plus others less good):
We saw three female pine grosbeaks at the top of two trees on the far side of the driveway later, too far away to try to photograph (and I had downloaded these photos already at that point.) Oh, the ruffed grouse that had been in the crabapple last year? There was one in the heritage apple tree outside the other kitchen window. And a red-breasted nuthatch at the window feeder.