Fifth-grade students in Ms. Bendure’s class at Mary Snow School in Bangor have taken a deep dive into understanding their local waterways thanks to a year-long partnership with Maine Audubon. This hands-on learning experience has been made possible through the Bay Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) program, supported by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). […]
News & Notes
Goodbye, Fry! A Salmon Send-Off to Remember for Endangered Species Day
Today we honor Endangered Species Day with stories about our work with schoolchildren in the Greater Portland and Greater Bangor area to raise and release endangered Atlantic Salmon. FIELDS POND This story begins back on a chilly February day, when Northern Programs Director David Lamon and Community-Based Education Manager Melissa Gallagher trudged through knee-deep snow, […]
Community Scientists Wanted for Mountain Birdwatch
Maine Audubon is looking for volunteers to help our friends at the Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE) in a community science effort called Mountain Birdwatch to help protect high elevation birds across the Northeast! There are four Maine sites left to be adopted and surveyed on one day of your choice in the month of […]
Learning that Sticks: Bangor Students Explore Watershed Health
This spring, fifth graders in Ms. Estes’ class at Mary Snow School wrapped up a yearlong investigation into watershed health with an inspiring environmental action project, thanks to support from the NOAA Bay Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) grant program. Their learning journey brought them from the top of Copeland Hill in Holden to the […]
The Federal Government is Taking Unprecedented Action Against the Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act is perhaps the most famous and effective wildlife conservation law in the nation, but the Trump Administration has recently proposed a change that would significantly weaken the Act and put species at risk. To understand the threat, it’s important to first understand how the Endangered Species Act works. Once a species […]
Pollinator Spotlight: Solitary Bees
We’re using the time leading up to the 10th anniversary Pollinator Parade, hosted at Gilsland Farm Audubon Center on May 10, to highlight a few of our favorite pollinator species! If you have tickets to the parade, consider this some extra costume inspiration. And even if you can’t attend, we hope these posts will help […]
Building for Barn Swallows
In my years of regular birding at Gilsland Farm, I’ve seen several species come, and others go, as breeders on the landscape. These changes are generally caused by changing habitat compositions and of course our warming climate, which has caused historically southern species to now nest here. We typically think of nesting habitats as the […]
The Birds Are Back in Town!
Above photo: A Piping Plover pair on Wells Beach in April. Photo by Coastal Birds Project Technician Kaily Rich The Coastal Birds Project 2025 season is already in full swing and Piping Plovers are busy foraging along the shoreline, making scrapes in the sand, and starting their nests all up and down the Maine coast. […]
Backyard Bird of the Month for May: Barn Swallow
Barn Swallows are a graceful, long-tailed swallow, known for building nests on human structures. After migrating more than 4,500 miles from Central and South America, the swallows begin collecting mud and grass to build their cup nests. They’ll transport between 750–1450 individual mud pellets to form the base, and line the nest with grass and […]