BOOTHBAY REGISTER • May 1, 2024
We’ve been serenaded most mornings this week by a loud, whistled “Old Sam Peabody-Peabody-Peabody”—the sweet sound of a white-throated sparrow tuning up the song that he will soon be singing incessantly from the depths of an opening in a fragrant spruce-fir forest somewhere farther north. Over the weekend, we were delighted at Pemaquid Harbor to hear the wonderful cacophony of a newly arrived flock of laughing gulls cavorting along the shore. Across the way in a little strip of muddy shore and saltmarsh were four greater yellowlegs. We were surprised to see a number of Arctic and Boreal breeding ducks that hadn’t left their Maine coast wintering grounds yet. Brunswick blessed us with the clear, whistled song of an eastern meadowlark. While walking the dog last week we heard an exuberantly singing pine siskin. ~ Jeffrey V. Wells and Allison Childs Wells