I just returned from Fundy National Park in New Brunswick. Up next, I’ll spend some time birding our own Acadia National Park. I’m a little worried about the latter.
It’s clear Canadians cherish their national parks, even in winter. Fundy has a variety of camping and glamping options, served with flush toilets, hot showers and heated cooking pavilions.
Trails are maintained and groomed for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and fat tire biking. The welcome center is open and well-staffed.
Granted, Canadians embrace winter sports with gusto. I chuckle whenever I visit Québec City and see people literally jogging in snowshoes on the historic Plains of Abraham.
Oddly, my first winter camping experience was in Acadia 49 years ago. At that time, Blackwoods Campground was plowed and open to camping.
I slept in my car, snuggled up alongside my cross-country skis. In the morning, I took a can of sterno down to the cliffs and heated water for instant oatmeal as sea smoke wafted over the frigid ocean.
Winters were colder then, and snowier. There were more birds, too.
Once upon a time, Americans also cherished their national parks. Nowadays, federal spending on parks and lands is considered wasteful. One-thousand jobs have been cut from the National Park Service, and several thousand more from the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Still, as long as someone is left to plow the road from Sand Beach to Otter Cliff, I’ll continue to bird Acadia in winter. After a half-century of birding my way past Thunder Hole, I know pretty much what I’m going to find, and where I’m going to find it.
I won’t claim a great abundance of wintering sea birds along the park loop road. Other places on the Maine coast offer bigger concentrations.
The road’s allure is its accessibility. For more than a mile, the road abuts the ocean’s edge at a height that makes it easy to spot waterfowl at considerable distances.
Buffleheads, black guillemots, long-tailed ducks, red-breasted mergansers and common eiders are often visible from Sand Beach. Common loons gather there, and a red-throated loon is possible. Horned grebes are likely, and red-necked grebes are occasional.
Look for most of these same species on the walk from Sand Beach to Otter Cliff. Scoters become more prevalent. I almost never visit Thunder Hole without spotting several black scoters. Surf scoters are probable. White-winged scoters, not so much.
If you see a flock of small shorebirds flying around or foraging on the rocks, they are undoubtedly purple sandpipers. This is one of the most reliable places in Maine to see them.
Seawall in Manset is another surfside birding hotspot inside the park. Most of the same sea ducks are here. All three species of scoter are more likely. The odds of seeing purple sandpipers are as good here as anywhere in Maine.
When birding this area, be sure to scan from the picnic grounds adjacent to the (closed) campground for ducks and seabirds. Gulls roost here in big numbers until high tide swallows up the spit, and there’s always the chance of an unusual gull lurking in their midst.
The Seawall area also offers one of the biggest concentrations of spruce on Mount Desert Island. The trees attract cone-eating finches, and I’m never surprised to find white-winged or red crossbills foraging in the treetops.
Wonderland Trail provides equally good finch-sighting opportunities.
I visit all the harbors on Mt. Desert Island, especially Southwest Harbor. A lot of sea ducks seek the shelter of coves and harbors, so waterfowl tend to congregate here. Long-tailed ducks can be particularly abundant in the harbor.
I recommend Acadia for novice winter birders. Birds are good, the scenery is great. On colder days, much of your birding can be done from the car, or during brief jaunts outside.
We’re lucky to have Acadia. There are 63 national parks in America, but only one in the Northeast. The next nearest is Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, 800 miles away.
