Kristina MacCormick of Portland, second from left, seems for birds on a weekly bird-watching walk at Gilsland Farm in Falmouth. MacCormick says she has been birding for a lot of years, however nonetheless appreciates the weekly bird-watching walks. “It’s constant learning new things. We pick up little bits and pieces,” she mentioned. “Ah-ha! I didn’t know that before!”Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
Ever seen a Hudsonian godwit?
It’s a migratory chicken named after Hudson Bay in Canada the place it was first recognized.
A uncommon sight in Maine, however one has been noticed in Portland’s again cove previously few weeks, in line with Doug Hitchcox, the employees naturalist at Maine Audubon.
“These birds are usually hard to see in Maine, typically far off on mud flats, but this young bird roosts on the rocks near the busy parking lot and doesn’t seem to care about the hustle and bustle of the city around it,” Hitchcox mentioned in a recent interview.
The chicken’s identify derives from its distinctive cry of “god-wiiit!”
This is the sort of factor you be taught on birding hikes led by Hitchcox each Thursday, all yr lengthy, at Gilsland Farm, Maine Audubon’s headquarters in Falmouth.
Audrey Stack of Falmouth is a daily on these hikes. She likes the truth that birds, like people, can see coloration whereas most animals rely on scent.
Birders look throughout a meadow Thursday throughout a bird-watching walk at Gilsland Farm in Falmouth. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
And she likes the joys of seeing and listening to birds and the problem of “spying on them,” she mentioned. “The mystery is intriguing.”
She has discovered from Hitchcox “what they’re doing and saying,” Stack mentioned. “I appreciate knowing about their life secrets, what they are saying and where they are going next.”
Hitchcox can “spy a bird way, way up in the sky and tell you that’s a blue jay or a woodpecker, or those are red-winged blackbirds. He knows at a glimpse.”
He can determine birds from the slightest sound, she mentioned, “even chirps that might sound the same to everyone else. He tends to know why they’re doing something, what they’re trying to communicate.”
For instance, she mentioned, you possibly can inform the risk a chickadee feels by the variety of “dees” in its protection name.
Chelsea O’Connor of Portland has gone on a lot of the Audubon hikes held since April.
“I was hooked right from the start,” she mentioned. “I love being outside and seeing things I wouldn’t normally see.”
She’s discovered birdcalls, feeding and nesting habits, and lifecycles of birds and their households, she mentioned.
“(Hitchcox) is awesome,” O’Connor mentioned. “He gives us facts about what certain birds like to eat, their foraging and nesting and mating habits.”
She mentioned Hitchcox can decipher many birdcalls unexpectedly and affords info which can be simple to soak up.
“I feel like a little kid learning new facts,” she mentioned. “There’s just never a dull moment, learning so much about native plants and how they affect birds.”
She mentioned one vital takeaway has been that birdfeeders will not be all the time the very best factor for birds.
“If so many people have birdseed and birdhouses, a lot of birds get used to that food source and then have babies who learn that easy food source instead of going to native plants,” O’Connor mentioned.
She mentioned individuals shouldn’t be nervous concerning the shortage of birds at feeders this season.
“That’s what it’s supposed to be like. It would be alarming if a lot of birds were coming to feeders desperate for food.”
MIGRATION IS ON
Hitchcox wrote in a weblog titled “Where Are the Birds?” that migration is a significant purpose for the decline of birds at feeders within the fall.
“Another major reason you are seeing fewer birds at feeders is because there is better food almost everywhere right now,” he wrote in September. “Lots of plants, especially wildflowers, are going to seed or forming fruit right now and birds are going to be targeting those high-quality food sources.”
He instructed a greater approach to preserve birds in your yard can be to offer them with native plants.
Since that weblog was written, “with the temperatures decreasing, fewer insects are available on the landscape and that will encourage birds to return to feeders,” he mentioned. Even fruiting vegetation have gotten scarce.
“It’s always important to remember birds would rather be foraging on natural food, but they’ll come back to feeders for an easy meal when the time comes,” Hitchcox mentioned.
He mentioned numerous birds migrate within the fall, making it one of many extra enjoyable instances to be out birding. Birdcast detected 11 million birds passing over Maine on the night of Sept. 20, he mentioned. The web site tracks nocturnal chicken migration in actual time.
In all, Maine has 290 species of birds, in line with the state’s official rely, and lots of could be discovered all through the state, whereas some happen solely in parts of the state. Hitchcox mentioned most songbirds have already handed by, “especially the long-distance travelers like warblers, but sparrows are showing up in huge numbers right now.”
Waterfowl similar to geese and geese are beginning to peak as issues freeze as much as our north and people birds come south in search of meals and open water, he mentioned.
Spring and fall migrations are nice instances for birding as a result of you possibly can see plenty of range in a single day, he mentioned.
Doug Hitchcox, proper, Maine Audubon’s employees naturalist, friends skyward just lately firstly of a weekly bird-watching walk at Gilsland Farm in Falmouth. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
But each season has one thing particular to supply.
“I’ve come to really enjoy summer birding, which can be slow in the hot weather, but I find a lot of value in slowing down and watching individual birds going about their days,” he mentioned.
Summer is the nesting season so when you stick with an individual chicken, you possibly can catch some intimate behaviors together with building a nest or carrying meals to feed a chick.
“Winter also brings some really cool birds that we don’t see any other times of the year: Harlequin ducks spend the winter on Maine’s rocky coast, usually in the rough surf, and the chance for finding a snowy owl is always a good enough reason to bring your binoculars along any winter day,” he mentioned.
Among the birds seen on a recent hike at Gilsland Farm had been two bald eagles, a red-throated loon and plenty of black geese.
ADVICE FOR BEGINNERS
If such sightings — and others — curiosity you and also you wish to give it a strive, Hitchcox recommends discovering a neighborhood place that you may go to repeatedly to observe the birds change with the seasons.
Frank Paul of Portland retains a handwritten log of the chicken species he is ready to determine within the discipline. Paul estimates he has been chicken looking forward to 50 years. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
“It’s a great way to start learning what is out there and when you can see them,” he mentioned.
He mentioned there aren’t any guidelines for birding, “but it is good to keep in mind that you want to do as little as possible to disturb or scare birds away.”
No want to decorate in camo, he mentioned, however blaze orange is really useful throughout looking season in your personal safety. And attempt to preserve quiet and never make quick actions.
“People sometimes get really excited when they see a bird and will point and shout, ‘There it is!’ only to have the bird quickly fly away,” he mentioned.
Longtime native birder Stan DeOrsey’s recommendation for inexperienced persons is to begin together with your yard and a feeder. Then purchase a chicken guidebook exhibiting the totally different birds.
“Pick anything to start, then you can always get a second book if you need another opinion,” he mentioned.
And purchase binoculars.
“The general advice is to buy the best you can afford,” he mentioned. “However, I suggest talking with other birders on a walk or at a club meeting (most meetings are free), to see what others use for binoculars.”
Stan and his spouse, Joan, each Auburn natives, belong to the Stanton Bird Club primarily based in Lewiston. They joined about 15 years in the past once they returned to Maine after years of residing in Poughkeepsie, New York, the place they started birding “literally after we got married, as a way to do something as a couple,” Stan mentioned.
They now lead walks for Stanton and attempt to exit a minimum of as soon as every week, he mentioned, relying on the climate.
You can discover a scheduled walk led by a chicken membership (Stanton affords free walks from May into October), however most chicken watching is completed in your yard with a clear and freshly crammed feeder, he mentioned.
“Use one type of food per feeder and use a feeder designed for that food,” he mentioned. “The usual problem is too much white millet in a seed feeder. Millet is good for sparrows and ground feeding on a platform feeder or on the ground. Put enough for one day so you do not attract unwanted animals at night.”
Audrey Stack of Falmouth, proper, seems for birds throughout a weekly bird-watching walk at Gilsland Farm in Falmouth. Stack is taking a Maine Master Naturalist course learning Maine chicken species and habitats. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
If you’d slightly enterprise out, good locations to go now are Martin’s Point Park and Long Beach on the south finish of Sabattus Pond in Sabattus, Stan mentioned.
The pond “literally fills with ducks at this time of year because the water is low and the lake bottom has a variety of food for them,” he mentioned.
Parks, together with Stanton’s Thorncrag in Lewiston, are additionally good locations to see birds.
“Walk the Riverwalk in Auburn south of the Court Street bridge, or the Androscoggin River Trail from Sunnyside Park in Lewiston, or the Papermill Trail in Lisbon. Mornings are the best time as the birds are up and hungry, but they can be found all day,” he mentioned.
He mentioned birders have “frequent rare sightings. Let’s call a rare sighting a bird which is not always found in Maine and/or generally in small numbers.”
These embrace a purple gallinule, which was seen within the city of York and in Piscataquis County in early October. He additionally talked about the Hudsonian godwit in Portland “and who can forget the Steller’s sea eagle seen (in Portland) for the past two winters. It was last seen in September in Newfoundland, but we hope it will show up in Maine again this winter.”
You may additionally anticipate to see migrant pine grosbeaks, redpolls and Bohemian waxwings in Maine in January and February if winter is extraordinarily chilly in Canada, he mentioned.
“Birding is a great way to get outdoors, visit locations you might not otherwise visit (cemeteries can be very good places to walk and see birds, as are sewerage treatment ponds),” Stan DeOrsey mentioned. “Be sure to ask permission and follow any rules.”
Maine Audubon’s Hitchcox encourages everybody to present birding a strive.
“The hobby covers a very wide spectrum from enjoying birds at a feeder in your yard, to keeping a list of all the birds you can see, or increasingly getting good photos of them,” he mentioned.
Birding is an efficient passion as a result of they’re so accessible, he mentioned.
“I always joke that if I could go out and see a bobcat or lynx every day, I’d be much more into mammals than birds. But almost anywhere you go, any time of the year, you can find a bird within minutes of looking. From the deep woods to a busy downtown, birds are easy to find and there is something to be learned from every one you see.”
Susan Gilpin of Falmouth, proper, seems for birds throughout a weekly bird-watching walk at Gilsland Farm in Falmouth. Gilpin is taking a Maine Master Naturalist course learning Maine chicken species and habitats. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
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