Seawall Beach (Mid-coast, Maine) 8/1

Seawall Beach must be one of the few eastern beaches where a "crowd" is considered about 50 people on a 2 mile stretch of beach on a summer afternoon. The two most popular routes of beach access are either to wade across the Morse River, from a crowded Popham State Beach (at low tide), or take the 2 mile (mosquito infested) walk in from the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area parking area (which holds about 30 cars). We, my friends Thom and Sue, along with Sue's 5 year old grand daughter, took the walk in and where rewarded with one of the finest beach days one could hope for.

The tern show was great, noisy begging juveniles were being tended to by adults, we saw a dozen or so Roseate Terns but missed a previously reported Royal Tern despite a good effort scanning over the course of the day.

A young (right) Common Tern begging as its parent looks on.
Another young Common Tern "begs on" as the adult "stares blankly" out to sea.

Another young C. Tern

digi-bin flight shots of another juv. C. Tern

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An adult Roseate Tern, note the leg bands, each Roseate seen close enough was banded.

A close up of an adult C. Tern.

The water and nearby islands had large numbers of the common gull species (Herring and Great Black-backed and fewed Ringed-billed Gulls). Hundreds of Common Eider were also present, one female eider had a single newly hatched chick in tow, most other young were near adult in size. The were a few dozen Black Guillemots in breeding plumage, some of which could be seen flying to burroughs on an island well off shore, where they likely nest.

Thom and Sue have had some nice numbers of shorebird at this location in past years, but that "peak" has yet to be reached. However, we did see a few hundred each of Semipalmated Sandpipers and Plovers along with a few Ruddy Turnstones, Short-billed Dowitches, Sanderlings and Black-bellied Plovers.

The mid-coast Maine water was fairly comfortable and we enjoyed some good swimming too.