We’re taking the show on the road! Since we launched Phenomenal: Seasonal Stories from Your Wildlife Community, a biannual live storytelling event, back in 2024, it’s been a wonderful experience hosted at Gilsland Farm Audubon Center in Falmouth. People gather to listen to Maine scientists, writers, naturalists, activists, and community members share stories that connect them to the changing seasons. We listen, laugh, ask questions, and mingle with each other and the guest storytellers, and hundreds more watch virtually either in real time or by watching the recording. We’ve heard moving stories of fish migration, tracking owls, and tagging woodchucks; we’ve heard about stories passed from one generation to the next; we’ve heard stories that have sparked memories, inspired us to act, and served as prompts for our own tales.
Now, this spring we’re taking Phenomenal on the road to Bangor! The wonderful folks at Bangor Public Library have worked with us to produce a great show on Wednesday, April 1, at 6:30 pm. Join us for an entertaining and invigorating evening of live storytelling. We’ll hear from biologists, birders, journalists, and foresters as they each share personal stories to help us relate and reconnect to the period of reawakening, rapid change, and false starts that marks early spring in Maine. If you can’t join live, you can watch the live stream over Zoom or watch the recording.
And now, let’s meet the storytellers:
Danielle D’Auria is Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s (MDIFW) species expert on secretive marsh birds, colonial wading birds, common loons, and black terns. She recently moved into the Bird Group Leader position, now supervising other nongame bird species specialists. Danielle’s early work experience included technician positions working with various threatened and endangered bird species in the northeast and southwest. She first joined MDIFW as a member of the Habitat Group, managing statewide wildlife and habitat databases. In 2008, she joined the Bird Group as the Department’s Waterbird Specialist. In this role, she has focused on understanding statewide populations of waterbird species as well as land management issues affecting the wetland habitats they depend on. She conducts surveys, monitoring, and research, and uses bird banding and tracking devices to understand movements of her focal species during all life stages. Her work has focused in particular on Great Blue Herons and Black Terns.
Bob Duchesne became interested in birds in the first grade. Interest grew to passion, and today Bob is a chapter board member and frequent field trip leader for Maine Audubon. He spearheaded creation of the Maine Birding Trail and is the author of Maine Birding Trail: The Official Guide to More than 260 Accessible Sites. Currently, Bob writes weekly birding columns in the Bangor Daily News and produces YouTube videos about birding in Maine and beyond.
Chuck Loring is a citizen of the Penobscot Nation. In his work duties, he provides oversight to the Nation’s natural resources department. His background is in Forestry, and he is a UMaine alum who graduated in 2012. He has worked for the Nation’s natural resources department in various capacities since then. Though his path has been through forestry, Chuck feels a deep connection to not only the forest, but the animals within it. When he isn’t in the office you can find him on any one of the various Penobscot territories with his daughter doing anything from collecting shed antlers to hunting moose.
Aislinn Sarnacki is an outdoor journalist and the host of Maine Public’s outdoor TV show “Borealis.” She is the author of three hiking guidebooks, teaches journalism at the University of Maine, writes as a columnist for the Bangor Daily News, and guides hikes as a registered Maine guide. Learn more at aislinnsarnacki.com.
