Freeze fails to foil fowl followers Lighthouse trip offers frigid, yet fascinating view of Atlantic seabirds

It was bitterly cold the day we took the Maine State Ferry out to Vinalhaven Island. Several days of below-zero temperatures had created sheets of ice that stretched far out into Rockland’s harbor and strong winds blew freezing spray and mist from the surface of the Atlantic. The view could not have been much different in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, I thought.

We undertook the trip to visit our friend Marjorie Stratton, who had recently become town manager of Vinalhaven. As such, she is given housing in the old light keeper’s house at Brown’s Head Light, up on the northwestern tip of the island. The location provides peace and respite from her demanding job, and something she knew I’d appreciate: birds.

Brown’s Head Light overlooks the Fox Islands Thorofare, which runs between Vinalhaven and North Haven Islands. Beyond North Haven across Penobscot Bay we could see the snow-covered Camden hills and the distant Owls Head Light. Numerous seabirds winter in the bay among the islands; we saw many common eiders and long-tailed ducks with the aid of a spotting scope.

The light keeper’s house has a wide, wooden deck attached to it, which provided a perfect viewing platform from which to observe the ducks. Below the house, slush ice hugged the shoreline, while solid slabs of it brushed up against the rocky bottom, creating a slight hissing noise as they did so. Besides the wind in the spruce forest surrounding the house, this was the only sound to be heard as we watched the ducks out on the water.

I was especially intrigued by the long-tailed ducks; these may be the only birds whose winter plumage is more striking than their summer plumage. I watched a small group of them as they dove in quick succession beneath the surface to capture food.

Later, I read that these ducks just about hold the record for diving depths: birds wintering on the open waters of Lake Michigan have been caught in fishing nets more than 60 meters down. Unfortunately, this as been a significant source of mortality for the birds in the past; there are conservative estimates that more than 19,000 of them have died in nets during a single season, according to Gregory Robertson and Jean-Pierre Savard’s treatise in the “Birds of North America.”

Another distinctive feature of this bird is its voice. I’ve heard many people remark that they look forward to finding large rafts of the ducks and listening to them “talk” to one another. Apparently they are very vocal and their calls carry for a considerable distance. Although I was too far away to hear them on Vinalhaven, I had heard the peculiar vocalizations from a large group of them off Flye Point in Brooklin some years ago. I remember the sound as being low and querulous, as if they were all gossiping among themselves.

It was too cold to spend much time outside, but this didn’t prevent us from seeing additional birds – we had ringside seats to see birds soaring above the shoreline. Our friend Sandy Knox, who is interested in birds only casually, could not help but be thrilled by the view of an adult bald eagle filling the living room window.

Birding from a lighthouse on a frigid winter’s day is surely the way to go!

Chris Corio, a volunteer at Fields Pond Nature Center in Holden, can be reached at fieldspond@juno.com