Hello there from the 2024 Coastal Birds Crew! The season is off to a busy start and everyone on the crew has been excited to dive right into work—protecting our rare beach-nesting birds. On our first day on the beaches, we headed down to Ogunquit Beach and fenced along the entire dune edge. We were …
News & Notes
Talking Tackle with the Fish Lead Free team
Maine Audubon’s Fish Lead Free project has been busy over the winter attending events and spreading the lead-free fishing word! Why lead-free? Because loons! Loons will mistake small lead sinkers on lake bottoms for gravel to help aid in digestion or will consume fish that have a piece of lead …
Planting Staghorn Sumac
Spring snowstorms can be a challenge for everyone. For humans ready to put away shovels and snowblowers, storms can be a real annoyance. For early migrant birds looking to feed on insects, blizzards can be a real threat. In the thick of a snowstorm in late March 2024 I witnessed a large flock of …
Meet our Fish Migration Tales storytellers!
Each spring, millions of fish return to Maine’s coastal rivers to spawn. For thousands of years, these fish runs have helped people build and sustain communities, economies, and cultures. Over time, dams, pollution, and other threats have fractured habitat and diminished historic numbers and species …
Maine Legislature Passes Suite of Bills to Protect Maine’s Lakes
The Maine Legislature this week finalized a set of bills intended to protect and enhance water quality on freshwater lakes and ponds. The bills, each passing with bipartisan support, tackle a variety of emerging freshwater issues, including aquatic invasive species, shoreland zoning, and wake …
Backyard Bird of the Month for April: Brown-headed Cowbird
Brown-headed Cowbirds are easily overlooked among the flocks of returning blackbirds in early spring. They are a similar shape and size to Red-winged Blackbirds, and the males of both species are mostly black. Male Brown-headed Cowbirds have no red or yellow on the wing, and a brown head. Females …
Managing Nature at Home!
Just when we thought it was time to put away the snow tires, we were reminded that March remains predictably unpredictable. This latest snow storm inflicted heavy damage on trees and shrubs across our state. Fortunately, the majority of our resilient native plant communities withstood the heavy ice …
Make Earth Day Matter with Maine Audubon
The first Earth Day took place on April 22, 1970, the brainchild of Gaylord Nelson, a senator from Wisconsin. He wanted to “get the nation to wake up and pay attention to the most important challenge the human species faces on the planet.” Designed as a day to sponsor “teach-ins” at college campuses …
Natural climate solutions offer hope in addressing climate change
If you are reading this blogpost on the Maine Audubon website, you likely: know about climate change and that we are already seeing its effects in the landscape all around us; realize that humans are the historical cause, the greatest ongoing contributors, and the source of all future threats …