Down East Spring Bird Festival

Area Birds

Down East Maine has a variety of habitats and ecosystems that provide homes - nesting, wintering migration, and year-round - to a majority of the 418 bird species that have been seen in the State. Our festival bird list notes over 230 birds that you might see in late May. During our first four festivals, participants have found 208 different birds.

Key coastal species include the Atlantic Puffin, Black Guillemot, and the Common Eider. The American Woodcock is a secretive migratory upland game bird that can be seen here. Significant marsh and water birds include Common Snipes, Pied-billed Grebes, Virginia Rails, Least and American Bitterns, and Soras. Boreal Chickadees, Spruce Grouse, Black-backed Woodpeckers, and sometimes crossbills are representative of the variety of area's boreal species. Some two dozen species of nesting Warblers illustrate the many neo-tropical songbirds that migrate through eastern Maine or nest here sometime during the year. Specialized grassland nesting species, such as Bobolinks, Upland Sandpipers, and Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrows, also can be found. Most bird species Down East can be found in a number of locations. Below are several key locations in the area and some of the birds you may encounter here.

An Atlantic Puffin and a Razorbill
on Machias Seal Island.
Photo by Michael McCabe.

The Down East Spring Birding Festival includes one of WildBird's Top 50 Birding Hotspots, Machias Seal Island, which WildBird called "the best location in America to see Atlantic Puffins". Not only are there hundreds more Puffins on Machias Seal Island than on any other island off the Maine coast, Machias Seal Island is the only one of the islands on which visitors routinely can land. Besides the Puffins, from the boat and from observation blinds on the island you may observe Double-crested and possibly Great Cormorants; Common and possibly Thick-billed Murre; Leach's Storm Petrels; Razorbills; and Arctic, Common, and possibly Roseate Terns.

Common Tern
© 2004 Alana Ranney.

Along the Cobscook Bay shoreline and tidal flats, you may find Short-billed Dowitchers; Dunlins; Common Eiders; Black Guillemots; Great Black-backed, Herring, and possibly Laughing Gulls; mergansers; Black-bellied and possibly Semipalmated Plovers; Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers; Common Snipe; Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrows; Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs; and perhaps Ruddy Turnstones and Willets.

Besides Alcids and Gulls, many boreal nesting species also can be found among the more than 150 bird species seen at the Roosevelt Campobello Roosevelt Park (PDF file) and on Campobello Island, New Brunswick. The island has nesting locations of chickadees, jays, Merlin, thrushes, woodpeckers, and quite a few warblers and other songbirds. Also watch for Canada Geese, grosbeaks, and Blue-winged Teal.

Breeding season brings many birds to Quoddy Head State Park in Lubec. These include Boreal Chickadees; Great Cormorants; Red and White-winged Crossbills; Northern Gannets; Spruce Grouse; Dark-eyed Nelson Juncos; Gray Jays; Golden-crowned Kinglets; Black-legged Kittiwakes; American Redstarts; American Robins; Pine Siskins; White-throated Sparrows; Hermit and Swainson's Thrush; possibly Bicknell's and Gray-cheeked Thrush; Blue-headed (Solitary) Vireos; over a dozen Warblers; and Black-backed Woodpeckers.

Trescott, Lubec, and Campobello Island bogs and their surrounding shrub and forested edges are home to chickadees, flycatchers, kinglets, Merlins, sparrows, swallows, and warblers, as well as the Purple Finch, American Robin, Cedar Waxwing, and Common Yellowthroat. Grassland nesting species, such as Bobolinks; Field, Lincoln's, Nelson's Sharp-tailed, Savannah, Song, White-throated, and Vesper Sparrows, and sometimes Eastern Meadowlarks and Upland Sandpipers, are found in area blueberry fields and other grasslands.

Over 200 species of birds have been identified in Cobscook Bay State Park. Eastport, particularly Carrying Place Cove and Shackford Head State Park, are home to a variety of phalaropes, gulls, and Bald Eagles.

At least 220 bird species have been seen in the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge. You may view Bald Eagles and Ospreys on their nesting platforms. Other bird species prevalent during the spring breeding season include the three Accipiters; American Bitterns; Boreal Chickadees; Black, Ring-necked, and Wood Ducks; falcons; Canada Geese; Ruffed and Spruce Grouse; a half dozen hawks; Great Blue Herons; American Kestrels; Eastern Kingbirds; Belted Kingfishers; Common Loons; five owl species; Virginia Rails; Spotted Sandpipers; Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers; Northern Shrike; Soras; Green-winged Teals; American Woodcocks; Pileated Woodpeckers; Marsh Wrens; and some two dozen Warbler species.

Further west, headquartered in the town of Milbridge, is the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge. This refuge contains 47 offshore islands and three coastal parcels, totaling more than 7,400 acres. The complex spans more than 150 miles of Maine coastline and includes five national wildlife refuges — Petit Manan, Cross Island, Franklin Island, Seal Island, and Pond Island. While the Fish and Wildlife Service focuses on restoring populations of nesting seabirds to the refuge's islands, many other bird species find habitat on refuge lands. Bald Eagles, wading birds, songbirds, waterfowl, and shorebirds visit the refuge to feed, nest, and rest. More than 300 bird species have been identified on the refuge.