With Halloween coming up in a few weeks, October is a great time to talk about bats. Our furry, flying friends are in trouble. Following is part one of a series on bats we are featuring this month. Please read and share - fostering an appreciation for bats will do wonders to help make their …
Maine's Naturalist
World Shorebirds Day
It seems like every day has been designated for something lately: National Blueberry Popsicle Day is September 2nd, the 4th is Newspaper Carrier Day and who could forget about National Clean Your Virtual Desktop Day coming up on October 19th. But there is one big ‘day' coming up that I want to …
Taking Back the Farm: Purple Loosestrife
This is the first in a small series of blog posts I'm calling Taking Back the Farm. Each post will focus on an invasive species that is present at Gilsland Farm. I hope you can take some of the information from these posts to identify and eradicate any non-native and invasive species you find on …
How to see a Little Egret
Birding has many interesting aspects. Birds offer plenty of exciting opportunities for discovery – from learning to the basics of identification to exploring the migratory timing or even just admiring them from your window. One of the most exciting aspects for me, is finding a rare bird. On June 8, …
Fall is upon us…
Although the summer solstice – the “first day of summer” – was on June 21st, to some birds that may have been the first day of Fall. All of the shorebirds we see in Maine are migratory. Some of them migrate to Maine for the winter (Purple Sandpipers) while some come here just to breed (Piping …
The Subadult Twitchers’ 2015 Bird-a-thon Recap
The 2015 Bird-a-thon is complete! This is the second year of participation by our team, the Sub-adult Twitchers, which formed last year as an attempt to involve a team of [mostly] youth birders. This year we were able to beat our past record but still fell short of our competitors, the Mighty Marsh …
Reflections on Warbler Walks
Each weekday morning from May 5th through the 15th, I had the pleasure of leading free walks at Evergreen Cemetery and Capisic Pond Park in Portland. In 10 days we saw 99 species, plus one other taxa (American Black Duck x Mallard hybrid). A complete list of these species is located at the end of …
Get More From Our Naturalist on Instagram
This blog has become a great place for me to connect with Maine Audubon members and others by sharing some of my observations of nature. I always try to make the posts relevant to what is going on in the natural world at the time I am writing and I wanted to share another way that you can get some …
Sounds of Spring: American Woodcocks
Now that our nights are finally warm enough that you can tolerate being outside for a few minutes, it is a great opportunity to try observing mating American Woodcocks. While visual observation may be difficult because the displays usually begin around dusk, even just the auditory experience is …