A few more exciting stages in the Maine Audubon Mural adventure took place in October! On Thursday, October 16, Bangor Beautiful and Maine Audubon hosted seven classrooms (about 140 students!) from Fairmount School in Bangor for a chilly, all-day planting spree (photo above) along the mural’s upper shelf facing York Street. These aren’t just any […]
Maine Native Plants
Building a Maritime Shrubland at IDEXX
This fall, Maine Audubon partnered with IDEXX (a Maine Audubon Corporate Partner) to design and install a Maritime Shrubland demonstration landscape at the company’s global headquarters in Westbrook. This project transforms a previously conventional planting area into a thriving native ecosystem modeled after Maine’s resilient coastal shrublands, plant communities found on windswept dunes and rocky […]
October Phenology Report: New England’s Red Foliage, Part 2
In last month’s blog post, we explored evolutionary reasons why leaves turn red in the fall. But this phenomenon is not uniform across the globe. In North America (and East Asia), deciduous trees have a much higher proportion of species that turn red instead of yellow. In Europe, only 24 species have red autumn leaves, […]
Bird Mural Takes Flight in Bangor
What was just a worn cement retaining wall on Broadway in Bangor last month is now becoming a vibrant celebration of birds, native plants, and community spirit. The Maine Audubon Mural, the newest commission by Bangor Beautiful, can be seen on the highly visible stretch of wall near the Family Dollar on State Street. Passed […]
September Phenology Report: New England’s Red Foliage
New England has the most beautiful fall foliage in the world! This may be my extremely biased opinion, but it is backed up by the millions of leaf peepers who visit every single year to witness the magnificent display put on by our native trees. For a long time, scientists believed that red fall colors […]
Bangor Beautiful and Maine Audubon Collaborate on Bird Mural and Native Plantings on Broadway in Bangor
Bangor Beautiful and Maine Audubon are partnering to transform a cement retaining wall on Broadway in Bangor with a powerful combination of public art and native plantings. The project will feature five large-scale murals by Eastport artist Alison Ross (schematic mockup of one of the five murals above), smaller companion murals created by students from […]
August Phenology Report: Hummingbird Pollination Syndrome
Last week, I saw a couple of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds whizzing around the nursery and perching in nearby trees. I love spotting these tiny and shiny birds—the only hummingbird native to New England. Even though this is the only species we typically see on the East Coast, they really pull their weight as pollinators; many native […]
Visit Our “Monarchs & Maine” Outreach Table at August Festivals
As Maine Audubon ramps up its activities and outreach in both DownEast/Eastern and Western Maine, we look for ways to share content and resources with the communities there. One great mechanism for doing this is by participating in popular summer festivals that occur and draw hundreds of people each year. Given that it is August […]
Community Tree Nurseries: Midsummer Update
2025 marked the launch of Maine Audubon’s four Community Tree Nurseries in Portland, Auburn, Bangor, and East Machias. Working with professional partners in municipal public works, urban forestry, vocational education, and habitat restoration, these nurseries will produce native species of trees and other plants for city arborists to use in replacing canopy trees in Maine’s […]