Suddenly, it’s September and we’re watching out for school buses. At our Audubon centers we’re shifting from summer camp mode to welcoming busloads of visiting school students on field trips. This makes it a good time to take stock of our summer activities and success, and to appreciate our more than thirty seasonal employees. Here are a few highlights of summer with a look ahead to some fall activities.
Coastal Birds: Despite huge and valid concerns about how our winter storms devastated Maine’s beaches and reduced the amount of sandy acres available for nests, we actually had a very successful Piping Plover season. In 2023, 157 breeding pairs fledged 212 Piping plovers. In 2024, we had a slight reduction of breeding pairs (143) but increased productivity resulted in 237 fledged chicks. Our seasonal team and volunteers stepped up big time to help breeding success on far less sand. As Piping Plover season wraps up, we’re shifting our attention to the second year of a volunteer Shorebird Monitoring program. This program seeks to engage the public with information about migratory shorebirds on Maine beaches, especially to avoid harassment by people and dogs. Shorebirds that breed in the far north stop by Maine to rest and refuel on their way to their southern wintering grounds (some all the way to southern South America!).
Loons: We deployed 83 nesting rafts on 73 different lakes and ponds in 2024. Initial preliminary results from the Annual Loon Count show a slight reduction in adult loons, but an increase in chicks (for the second year in a row). Our loon program relies on the largest cohort of volunteers: 1300 for the count and 300 for the nesting rafts (with a fair amount of overlap between the groups). Read about the season wrap-up here >
Summer camps: We continued to sell out our summer camps and plans are in the works to expand capacity both at Gilsland Farm in Falmouth and at Fields Pond in Holden.
Borestone: The big news for 2024 was more programmatic use of Borestone, including biweekly naturalist programs, several naturalist weekends using the lodges for overnight sessions, and the second year of a partnership for nature-based art with Monson Arts.
Sanctuaries: Visits to our sanctuaries continues to run very high and this is only improving due to the great work of Maine Audubon Land Steward Liz Thibault and her volunteers. In literally months, Liz has had a significant impact and is gearing up for even more improvements. Earlier this summer, she and volunteers installed a new bridge at Mast Landing, and did trail improvements at East Point and Josephine Newman sanctuaries.
Partnerships: We continue to broaden and deepen our partnerships with other organizations. Over the summer, our partners at Maine Association for New Americans helped us recruit 12 teens to help us learn about and plant species from the K-5 Wabanaki Studies curriculum at Portland elementary schools. These new plantings will enable teachers and students to visit these plants as they grow and bloom during the school year while they study their importance to Wabanaki culture, relationships with wildlife, their indications for climate change, and other ecological benefits they provide. Read about that project here >
Our third summer of working with young New Mainer teens in Sprout Lewiston ended on a high note; read about our third season with these New Mainer teens.
We’ve also just announced an exciting new program which will develop four community tree nurseries in Maine’s largest urban areas, as well as in Machias. These four nurseries will produce trees that city arborists will use to restore the forest canopy in Portland, Bangor, and Lewiston/Auburn and will be used in habitat restoration projects Downeast. These conservation horticulture nurseries will be overseen by City Parks and Public Works staff, managed by Maine Audubon and staffed via new work study programs for teens from marginalized communities, with help from numerous intercultural partners such as Maine Community Integration, Maine Association of New Americans, and Wabanaki Youth in Science. The project will also benefit from overarching oversight from Forestry Professor and Penobscot citizen John Daigle at the University of Maine.
Naturalist programs: We now have three naturalists on staff and this has resulted in many more naturalist programs taking place both at our sanctuaries, but also across the state—even as far north as Aroostook County. This fall, Staff Naturalist Doug Hitchcox will be leading another Aroostook County program in October; Field Naturalist Andy Kapinos leads monthly plant walks and accessible beginner bird walks at Gilsland Farm; and our new Fields Pond Naturalist Val Watson is launching a weekly bird walk as well as a hiking club at Fields Pond.
I could go on and on, but that’s a good sampling for the great work taking place at Maine Audubon. I hope that you have joined some of our programs. If you are a Maine Audubon member, you should have received a copy of our magazine, Habitat, in the mail by now. If you’re not a member, there’s a great reason to join right there! Be sure to use Habitat and our website to select programs that you can enjoy this fall.
