Rare birds visit nature center, mall

HOLDEN – Audubon birders were out looking for birds last week around the perimeter of the Sunkhaze National Wildlife Refuge. We were delighted to see two different pairs of gray jays.

These uncommon and handsome birds have a beautiful way of gliding to a branch that makes them seem weightless. They would glide to a spruce branch and poke their bills into a clump of lichen on top of the branch. It was hard to get a good look at them.

Seeing unusual birds and peculiar behavior makes one savor the sighting and wonder what the behavior was about.

Back at the Fields Pond Audubon Center, books and Web sites were consulted. Gray jays, it turns out, often find insects in clumps of lichen.

Also, gray jays have unusually large salivary glands. They can roll food – insects, berries, moose meat from a carcass – into a bolus and cache it for the winter, often in a clump of lichen on a branch, also in a tree crotch or in cracks in the bark.

The jays are sometimes called whiskey Jack, Moose Bird or Gorbie. We wondered if the birds we saw were finding, or storing food. We’ll have to watch more carefully next time. We’ll try to determine whether the jay is carrying a bolus and placing it in the lichen. Or, does its bill go into the lichen empty, and come out with an insect? That won’t be easy to determine in the dense, dark spruce forest.

Another Audubon volunteer and birder is always looking for birds – even when he is shopping with his family at the Bangor Mall.

Gulls are attracted to all malls, often finding a source of food in the dumpsters. In addition to food, gulls need a big, open area without trees for them to take off into flight – much like airplanes.

That’s why they are often found at malls, and this birder is always watching for rare gulls along with the common gulls, such as herring gulls, ring-billed gulls and great black-backed gulls. He found an uncommon gull – an Iceland gull. It may have come south from Labrador or Greenland to keep warm – on the roof of Macy’s.

For information on Fields Pond Audubon Center, call 989-2591.