Bring out your calendar. It’s time to plan which birding festivals you’ll be attending this year. There are four major ones. Feel free to attend more than one.
Festivals have become very popular, with something to offer birders of every skill level.
Beginners enjoy seeing more birds than they ever imagined. More experienced birders improve their identification skills with the help of expert guides. Experts discover some of Maine’s secret places for tough-to-find birds. There’s a menu of guided walks and boat trips to choose from, all packed into a single weekend.
Timing is everything. Bird migration through Maine peaks over the last two weeks of May. Many species will stay to breed here, while others continue migrating northward. The exact date of that peak varies by location.
By June, Maine’s nesting birds are settled on territories. Their courtship rituals and territorial defenses make them easier to find.
Over the weekend of May 16-18, Deer Isle and Stonington host their annual Wings, Waves & Woods Festival. Most songbirds migrate at night, and quite a few follow the coastline. At dawn, they often find themselves over islands and peninsulas. This festival is timed to catch that fallout.
Furthermore, it takes place before many of our overwintering birds leave for their still-frozen breeding grounds in the subarctic. It’s the best of both worlds.
Boat trips are a highlight of this festival. Wintering sea ducks are still abundant in the coves and harbors around Stonington and Isle au Haut. This festival also features the earliest puffin trips of the season.
As Wings, Waves & Woods enters its 17th year, I am reminded that I have guided in all of them. I expect registration to open next month, but we’ve never run out of room for participants on this one.
Meanwhile, registration for the Downeast Spring Birding Festival opened several weeks ago. It’s scheduled over Memorial Day weekend every year. This year it will be held May 23-26.
Although the festival is based at Cobscook Institute in Trescott, it covers a big chunk of Washington County, as well as Campobello Island in New Brunswick. I consider this region to offer the best mix of diverse habitats in the state, and it typically produces the biggest list of species for any Maine-based festival.
This is the 22nd year. I’ve been guiding this one for so long, I’ve lost count. That’s the amusing part, because after all these years, I don’t have to find the birds. I already know where they are.
It pays to register early for this festival. It offers a wide variety of bird walks, but with limited group sizes to ensure the best experience. Four puffin trips to Machias Seal Island are very popular and fill up quickly.
The Acadia Birding Festival is the biggest and longest-running Maine festival. It ramped up 26 years ago and hasn’t slowed down since. It attracts the highest numbers of birders, expert leaders and nationally known speakers.
It’s scheduled for the weekend following Memorial Day, starting on Thursday, May 29, this year and ending on Sunday, June 1. This festival takes place just as the majority of Maine’s breeding population settles down to nest, producing an impressive list of sightings each year.
This festival also offers puffin trips. One of those trips continues farther offshore in search of birds found only in the open ocean, making it Maine’s earliest pelagic birding trip of the year. Since there are participation limits for the boats and bird walks, it’s best to sign up early. Registration for the Acadia Birding Festival will open in early March.
One week later, save June 5-8 for the Rangeley Birding Festival. This festival is different. It focuses on the spruce-fir boreal forest that predominates in northern climates. Many birds that breed among the spruces are hard to find elsewhere, and this festival seeks them out. It’s the year-round realm of boreal chickadees, spruce grouse and Canada jays. It’s the nesting home of Cape May, Tennessee, and bay-breasted warblers.
One highlight of this festival is a trip up the slopes of Saddleback Mountain, seeking the rare Bicknell’s thrush, a bird classified as threatened on the state’s endangered species list.
Registration for the Rangeley Birding Festival is also expected to open in early March.
You can find websites for all festivals online and keep yourself updated. All the links are conveniently listed at MaineBirdingTrail.com/festivals.
Even if you don’t think you’ll attend, it’s worth taking a look. What better way to survive winter than dreaming of spring birding?
