Birding News and Features

Expansion of Maine’s Sandhill Cranes

One of the largest birds that can now be found in Maine more regularly than 20, 10, and even 5 years ago is the sandhill crane (Grus canadensis).  This large, graceful, prehistoric-sounding bird may or may not have been present in New England during colonial times, but since the early 1990s breeding has been confirmed in Maine and crane numbers have been increasing.

Get Your 2012 Maine Birder Band

For the fourth year in a row, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is calling on birders to help support IF&W's efforts to secure a landscape that will support each of Maine's 103 bird Species of Greatest Conservation Need for future generations.

MDIF&W Releases New Piping Plover Video

After a banner year of plover productivity, MDIF&W is hoping that a new outreach video will inspire additional appreciation for one of Maine's most endangered bird species.

Little Egret at Scarborough Marsh WMA

Maine's first Little Egret found at MDIF&W's Scarborough Marsh Wildlife Management Area by Doug Hitchcox on June 29, 2011.

Maine’s First State Park to Hold 3rd Annual Birding Festival

Firmly established as a favorite Aroostook State Park event, the 2011 birding festival will offer bird walks, live birds of prey, birding displays, boat rides and children’s activities. It not only provides a wonderful, family-friendly activity for visitors, but it also highlights the unique natural resources of Aroostook State Park as a birding locale.

Wildlife Biologists Monitoring Peregrine Falcons in Portland

MDIF&W staff joined with associates from the BioDiversity Institute and the Maine Department of Transportantion to band Peregrine falcon chicks and collect data from a popular nesting site along a Portland bridge. This marked the fourth year that biologists visited the Portland nesting site, unusual for its proximity to the humans. The site has been made especially popular with Maine’s birding community through a live webcam on the nest, a camera allowing thousands of viewers to watch the birds themselves.

Wildlife Biologists Monitoring Peregrine Falcons in Portland

MDIF&W staff joined with associates from the BioDiversity Institute and the Maine Department of Transportantion to band Peregrine falcon chicks and collect data from a popular nesting site along a Portland bridge. This marked the fourth year that biologists visited the Portland nesting site, unusual for its proximity to the humans. The site has been made especially popular with Maine’s birding community through a live webcam on the nest, a camera allowing thousands of viewers to watch the birds themselves.

Introducing Maine eBird!

Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the Maine Birding Trail are excited to announce the release of Maine eBird, an eBird portal specifically tailored to the Pine Tree State. Not only does this website provide a version of eBird with a Maine focus, but it will also provide Maine's bird conservation partners the ability to announce Maine specific projects, volunteer opportunties, and news regarding Maine's rich avifauna.  From now on, reporting to Maine eBird will be all you need to do to make sure your sightings are available to a wide range of people interested in Maine birds. If you already have an eBird account, please remember that you do not need a separate login for Maine!  This site has been made possible by Maine birders who contribute to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife through the Maine Birder Band program and through grant funding provided by the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund.

WANTED: Wading Bird Colony Locations and Monitors

Have you ever seen a great blue heron nest?  They tend to be large stick nests, not unlike osprey nests and may be placed in snags (dead standing trees) or in live hardwoods or softwoods.  Often herons nest colonially, so there may be several nests in close proximity to one another or even in the same tree.  Sometimes great blue herons will nest in colonies with other wading bird species such as egrets, night-herons, or ibis.  If you know of any wading bird colonies, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries (MDIFW) would also like to know.  In 2009, biologists with MDIFW started tracking wading bird colonies more closely due to the designation of the great blue heron as a species of Special Concern and the black-crowned night-heron as a State Threatened species.

Tracking eider movements in relation to offshore wind facilities using satellites.

In order to help understand how marine-wind power development in the northeast may impact common eiders, researchers from Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) teamed with biologists from Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) and U.S. Geological Survey, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (USGS) to capture and track four common eiders with satellite transmitters.

Maine Birder Band's third year

Since 2009, the Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife's Maine Birder Band program has helped to fund the Department's Bird Group efforts through voluntary donations by birders in 26 states and maritime provinces of Canada.  Wildlife agencies from several other states have inquired about Maine's program.  Afterall, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!  Are you sporting the 2011 Maine Birder Band on your binocular strap?

Make Your Checklists More Meaningful!

As the eBird database grows by leaps and bounds, it is becoming ever more valuable.  Your observations are making a huge difference in our understanding of birds at many levels. Our scientists are now analyzing your data to find new patterns in bird distribution, abundance and population trends.  Although every record submitted to eBird is valuable, only observations with effort can be used in these more rigorous analyses, so we would like to promote several bird survey techniques that we consider most valuable in this regard.  Make the most of your birding by conducting traveling counts, stationary counts and area counts in a more meaningful way.  In this feature we'll give examples of how to make your observations count for bird conservation!

Bird Counting 101

At eBird we encourage you to make your best estimate of bird numbers on every checklist. Your best estimate of numbers is always more useful than putting an "X' to indicate presence. An "X' could be one or it could be a thousand! We can always simplify numbers back to presence/absence for analysis. Your estimates of numbers help us judge relative abundance, and are an important part of checklist data. So what do you do if you're having trouble counting birds? Large flocks of birds are always challenging, and in this article we'll talk about some techniques for estimating numbers so that you can practice and become more proficient at counting birds. This will be the first in a series of articles discussing techniques for counting birds.

Bird Counting 201

In this second installment of our series on counting birds we'll discuss some approaches to counting more problematic groups of birds including large numbers, moving flocks, and mixed species flocks. How do the hawk counters do it? How should you count that constant stream of Cormorants passing your local headland? How do you go about picking out different species in large flocks of birds. "Birds of a feather flock together!" Well, sometimes, but more often than not we're presented with heterogeneous flocks of birds comprised of many different species. Learning how to look at species ratios within flocks is important, and developing an eye for picking out what is different will help you find that proverbial needle in the haystack that we're all hoping for--a rarity. Armed with the tips in this column we hope you'll improve your ability and begin to enjoy counting birds.

Location! Location! Location!

Exactly where you plot your birding locations on the map is critical for eBird in many ways. When you are specific with your location information we can perform better analyses, and we can ensure that your birding lists are built correctly. eBird thrives on location specificity, and a good general rule of thumb when entering data is that it's always better to enter shorter checklists from more refined locations than longer checklists from a string of unrelated locations. In this article we'll discuss why being as precise as possible with your birding locations yields the best results.

What in the world is "Herring Gull (American)"?

Most species names in eBird are easily found with a glance at your field guide, but eBird also allows entry of a number of other birds (sometimes we call them 'taxa') whose names do not appear in any guides. These break down into three main groups: hybrids, spuhs, and subspecies groups. Hybrids all have the word "hybrid" in the name (e.g., Mallard x Gadwall (hybrid)) and all spuhs either have a "sp." (e.g., scoter sp.) or slash (e.g., Greater/Lesser Scaup) in the name. The subspecies groups, such as "Herring Gull (American)", are more complicated and explained in this article.

Using the eBird Comments Fields

eBird has two comments fields that can be used however you choose. While birders sometimes leave these fields blank, entering submission notes can help make your checklist more valuable. Your comments can assist our eBird reviewers as they try to assess records of rare and unusual birds. By supplying some extra information in your comments you can make your records easier to interpret and make the review process faster. Your eBird data (including comments fields) are also shared with editors of local and regional bird journals, authors of articles and books on bird distribution, state wildlife agencies, and conservationists.

Are you really making Casual Observations?

We've noticed at eBird that many observers are choosing the "Casual Observation" methodology when in fact they are actually conducting more rigorous types of surveys while birding. Casual Observations are of limited value because there is little effort information required, which allows them to be used in fewer analyses because we know less about how you went birding. It's important to let us know what kind of effort you put into making your observations. Please read on for a better understanding of the eBird methodology choices, and to learn how to make your data most valuable.

Western hummingbirds in the East--set your feeders out!!

Document Actions

• RSS feed