You don’t have to travel far to see unusual birds and unique history. Spring bird walks will begin next week, and some of the best walks will be on historically odd properties.
These include a city cemetery, a former insane asylum, an experimental forest (or two), an old landfill (or three), and a defunct bait farm.
The Penobscot Valley Chapter of Maine Audubon introduced the May morning bird walk program in 2017. Ten are on the schedule this year, and the first is on Wednesday, May 8. Gordon Russell and Jane Rosinski will lead a walk at Brewer’s Indian Trail, meeting at 7 a.m. at the Penobscot County Conservation Association building on North Main Street.
Indian Trail is exactly what the name implies. It’s a centuries-old footpath used by the Penobscot Nation, running along this historically vital section of the Penobscot River. The bird walk starts in low woodland next to the river, and slowly ascends a bluff into Indian Trail Park.
It’s a spot where early-arriving migrants regularly liven up the morning. Last year’s walk recorded 26 species.
World Migratory Bird Day is on May 11. The Saturday morning walk at Fields Pond Audubon Center in Holden starts at 8 a.m. All other walks begin at 7 a.m., and typically last 90 minutes.
Bangor City Forest is the destination on Tuesday, May 14. The tract’s formal name is the Rolland F. Perry City Forest, named after the city forester who managed the diverse woodland for 42 years.
There are many different habitat types in the forest, so the bird species variety is astounding. Meet at 7 a.m. at the Kittredge Road entrance, below the bobolink-filled fields of another closed landfill.
Essex Woods is the site for a walk on Wednesday, May 15. It features a popular walking path around a productive wetland, in the shadow of a sledding hill that once operated as a ski slope in the 1970s. For most of its previous history, the area was an open-air dump.
After the dump closed in 1955, the surface water trapped between Interstate 95 and the closed waste facility created a highly productive marsh ecosystem. This bird walk is now one of the most popular on the schedule. It starts at 7 a.m.
Two days later, on Friday, May 17, a walk through Saxl Park begins in the Cascade Park parking lot, just off State Street in Bangor at 7 a.m. The brick buildings adjacent to the fields now house several state offices and the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center.
The center was formerly known as Bangor Mental Health Institute, and it was originally established in 1895 as the Eastern Maine Insane Asylum.
The grasslands of Saxl Park host nesting bobolinks and savannah sparrows. Bird houses are filled with eastern bluebirds and tree swallows. House wrens, brown thrashers and yellow warblers thrive along the field edges.
The schedule announces the destination for Monday, May 20, as Leonard’s Mills in Bradley. Truthfully, we’ll be lucky if we make it that far. The walk starts at 7 a.m. at the junction of Government Road and Route 178 in Bradley, and continues through the Penobscot Experimental Forest.
The 1000-acre tract was established in 1950 as one of 80 experimental forests designated by the U.S. Forest Service for long-term research. Like Bangor City Forest, it’s a patchwork of silvicultural stands that provides diverse bird habitat.
I should know. I’ve been leading this walk for years, and birding it for decades.
Meet at 7 a.m. behind the Versant Power Astronomy Center & Jordan Planetarium on the University of Maine campus for the walk on Tuesday, May 21.
We’ll explore several habitats including the vast wet meadow still known as the cornfields, although nowadays you’ll see far more grass than corn. Rails, bitterns, grassland birds and numerous warblers are commonly seen here.
The following day, on Wednesday, May 22, birders will assemble at 7 a.m. in Mt. Hope Cemetery. Established in 1834, it’s the second oldest garden cemetery in the United States. Great horned owls have nested here in previous years, and one may show up again for this walk.
On Thursday, May 23, Bangor Land Trust co-sponsors the walk into its West Penjajawoc Preserve. Meet at 7 a.m. at the dead end of Fox Hollow Lane, off Essex Street.
The final walk on Tuesday, May 28, is to the Caribou Bog Conservation Area off Forest Avenue in Orono, co-sponsored by the Orono Land Trust. Most local residents still call this area the Taylor Bait Farm, because for 30 years, that’s what it was. Follow Taylor Road 0.3 miles from Forest Avenue and meet in the trailhead parking area at 7 a.m.
