The appearance of a vagrant bird instills wonder, causing us to ask how such an out-of-place bird got to Maine. Vagrants are also exciting to birders, giving us a chance to see a bird that would normally require us to visit other states or countries.

Maine has its fair share of vagrant species. Of the 475 species of Maine birds, 107 species have been sighted five or fewer times. Forty-nine species have only been recorded a single time and another 29 only twice. May is the most likely time for one of these vagrants to appear with October close behind. March is the most vagrant-poor month.

We are coming up on the 37th anniversary of what I consider to be Maine’s most mind-boggling vagrant. On Nov. 5, 1977, a flycatcher with bold streaking was seen and photographed in Biddeford. The bird lingered until Nov. 11.

It was initially identified as a sulphur-bellied flycatcher, a bird whose northern breeding limit is in southeastern Arizona. These Arizona birds migrate south for the winter. Such a record would be amazing.

Variegated flycatchers move south to Argentina and adjacent South American countries to nest, but somehow one ended up in Maine in 1977. Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel

However, closer examination of the bird in the field and from photographs indicated that this vagrant was a variegated flycatcher, a South American bird. In November, variegated flycatchers move south to Argentina and adjacent South American countries to nest.

Somehow, a variegated flycatcher made a major orientation error and ended up flying north all the way to Maine. This record was the first for North America.

A likely explanation for this vagrancy was reverse migration, a genetic mutation that causes a bird’s internal compass to be off by 180 degrees. Since 1977, nine other variegated flycatchers have occurred in North America in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Michigan, Washington and Ontario.

In 1977, this record captured my imagination. In college in North Carolina then, I had no chance to see it. I did make a trip to Argentina last November and the variegated flycatcher, a common bird there, was on my list of most-desired species. I saw and photographed many.

Although Maine has two records of Kirtland’s warbler, I regard those vagrants to be highly noteworthy. Kirtland’s warblers nest in jack pine forest in northern Michigan with satellite populations in Wisconsin and Ontario. The population fell to only 400 birds by 1971 due to brown-headed cowbird brood parasitism and habitat loss. Conservation efforts have been effective, but the population now is only around 4,000 birds.

This species winters in the Bahamas. You can picture a northwest to southeast trajectory for the migration of this species. Somehow, two have been sighted in Maine. One was on the Kennebunk Plains in June 2008 and another on Matinicus Rock in September 2023. The rarity of the species combined with the fact that Maine is far removed from their migration path makes our records wonderfully unlikely.

The great black hawk is a raptor found in Central and South America. Texas and Maine share the only record of this species in North America. In April 2018, a great black hawk appeared on South Padre Island, Texas. In August, the same bird as judged by details of its plumage showed up in Biddeford. The bird appeared in Portland on Oct. 29, 2018 until Jan. 30, 2019. It spent most of its time in Portland in Deering Oaks Park where the abundant squirrels provided a steady food supply. Unfortunately, the hawk developed frostbite in late January. Efforts to nurse it back to health by rehabbers failed so the bird was mercifully euthanized. Certainly, a Maine winter is tough for any displaced tropical bird.

A list of the most amazing Maine vagrants must include the Steller’s sea eagle that first appeared in Maine in Georgetown on Dec. 30, 2021, and stayed until March 5, 2022. It put in another appearance from Feb. 4-14, 2023. Since then, it has been hanging out in Newfoundland.

The species is found along the western Pacific coast from Russia south to Japan and Korea. There are a few records for the Aleutian Islands and western mainland Alaska. But the one we saw in Maine was first sighted in Alaska and then southern Texas. The eagle then made the rounds in Massachusetts, Maine, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

This bird was easily the most observed rare vagrant in Maine history. Hundreds of birders came to the Georgetown-Boothbay area to try to see this remarkable bird.

I think these four species are the most astounding vagrants we have on the Maine bird list. There is plenty of room for argument with so many other remarkable vagrants in the Pine Tree State.

Herb Wilson taught ornithology and other biology courses at Colby College. He welcomes reader comments and questions at whwilson@colby.edu