Birding festival participants observe 145 species

On a crisp Sunday morning, a small group of birdwatchers stand quietly in a small gravel lot surrounded by secondary‑growth forest at Bog Brook Cove Preserve in Trescott. With not a breath of wind, the scent of wet seaweed and the sound of a lobster boat are the only clues of the rocky coast mere yards away. Cameras, binoculars and fingers are avidly pointed toward numerous warblers and flycatchers flitting in the newly leafed out birches when someone exclaims, "Wilson's warbler 11 o'clock, now 8 o'clock!"

Guide and partner of Flyaway Birding tours Chip Darmstadt holds his bird book high with one hand to expound on the subtle differences between a young male and adult female American redstart. Others hold smart phones to ID birds by sound using Cornell University's Merlin Bird ID app.

Guide Becca Cusick pulls out a pencil and small notebook to begin recording the bird tally for the walk. Later it is uploaded to eBird, a publicly accessible database developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society.

As the group continues past a small pond, beaver lodge and vast shrubby bog, they note intermittent ruffed grouse drumming, a series of rapid wing beats to attract females that's felt more than heard. A common yellowthroat, looking like a masked bandit, perches on a stem, while a northern harrier patrols overhead. This morning's trip was one of 35 walks, paddles and cruises during the 23rd annual Downeast Spring Birding Festival held on May 22 to 25 and hosted by the Cobscook Institute in Trescott.

According to local bird expert and guide Bob Duchesne, who has been with the festival from the beginning, the Memorial Day weekend festival "couldn't be more well timed," as it happens "near the tail end of peak migration, when some birds are settling in and others still passing through." The timing and the "extraordinary habitat richness" around Cobscook Bay are two reasons he thinks this location and festival are the best in Maine for birding.

Designed by more than 20 community members from 10 partner organizations, the festival covers the full gamut of habitats from Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge to the rocky coast from Steuben to Campobello Island. There are rivers, beaches, bays, ponds, bogs, marshes and islands along a continuum of fresh to salt water. Expansive mud and sand flats, bordered by the seaweed‑covered rocky coasts, are submerged twice daily under 18- to 26‑foot tides of cold nutrient‑rich water. There is also a mix of boreal or northern conifer and temperate deciduous forests resulting in both northern and southern bird species converging.

The festival includes the highly‑sought after puffin cruises to offshore islands, Petit Manan and Machias Seal Island. The latter is the only place in the U.S visitors can see Atlantic puffins up-close behind a blind. But these trips fill up fast. With their splashy rainbow‑colored beaks, orange legs and feet, they are undoubtedly the "star of the show," says Kara McCrimmon, festival coordinator since 2008, adding, "It's one of the birds people travel for."

The festival began in 2003 to attract "new tourism dollars," says McCrimmon. This year more than 110 people participated, with 90 traveling from outside the region. This tops the 80 total participants last year. McCrimmon estimates that with motel stays, boat trips, catering and food, approximately $40,000 went directly to local businesses and with gas, souvenirs and art purchases like the $700 of artwork sold by one local artist during the bird‑themed art show at Lubec Landmarks' Mulholland Gallery, the estimate is likely higher.

Duchesne and Darmstadt, with their decades of birding experience, have observed more people birding than ever, especially since the pandemic. There has been "a big surge" that stretches into the younger demographics, says Duchesne. "More people are going on bird walks, taking bird photos and traveling to see birds."

A 2024 U.S Fish and Wildlife Service report backs up their observations. According to the report, a third of all U.S. adults, 96 million, are birders with an estimated $279 billion in total economic output in 2022, "more than all recreational hunting and fishing combined." The increased popularity is likely advanced by the availability of digital tools that make birding more accessible. For example, between 2020 and 2023 there was a fivefold increase in regular Merlin app use and eBird checklists doubled during the same time period.

A total of 145 species were observed during this year's festival, reflecting the habitat diversity of the area. From gulls and gannets to eagles and owls, from sparrows and swallows to warblers and woodpeckers to herons and hummingbirds to finches and flycatchers, from cormorants and kingfishers to loons, puffins, plovers and more for a total of 17,600 birds, according to eBird.

An 'avifaunal' crisis

Data like these numbers are critical to understanding bird population trends  especially against the specter of what a 2019 Journal of Science article describes as a "pervasive and ongoing avifaunal crisis." Since 1970, there has been a cumulative loss of more than three billion North American birds, with grassland birds, migratory birds and aerial insectivores being hit the hardest.

With over two decades of Downeast birding experience, Duchesne has observed decreases in aerial insectivores like "swallows, chimney swifts, whip‑poor‑wills, nighthawks. Any bird that picks a bug out of the air is declining pretty badly. And you can see that in Washington County," he says.

In fact, in 2023 the bank and cliff swallow were added to the Maine Endangered and Threatened Species List following population crashes of 99% and 97% since the 1960s. Declining insect populations and habitat loss the most likely culprits.

Climate change is also taking its toll. Within the last 10 years Duchesne has observed the loss or "shrinking" of boreal or northern bird species in the region due to climate change, and the warming Gulf of Maine "doesn't help," he says. He is especially struck by how fast it has happened. For example, the brown‑capped, boreal chickadee used to be common but now likely extirpated from the region, and Canada jays are much less common.

There is, according to the Science article authors, "an urgent need" to address threats "to avert future avifaunal collapse." They refer to the need to expand bird conservation efforts in light of "multiple and interacting threats," like habitat loss, free‑roaming cat predation, bird strikes, light and noise pollution, toxic pesticides driving insect declines, to name a few. All are amplified by climate change.

Darmstadt, who started birding in the late '80s, views the increased emphasis on birding and accessibility with events like the festival as expanding the pool of people who care about birds. "More people paying attention to birds is a good thing for birds," says Darmstadt.

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