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Birding
- Downeast Maine Downeast / The Boreal Coast
From Mount Desert Island to Passamaquoddy Bay on the Canadian border, Maine's Downeast coast has a distinctly boreal character. Cold, nutrient-rich water mixed by strong tidal currents supports a diverse marine food web, which includes many pelagic birds. The cold water is the cause of frequent fog that blows in over the exposed rocky shore, creating a lush environment for a northern maritime spruce-fir forest. Along the estuaries a tidal range of up to 26 feet exposes vast mudflats for migrating shorebirds to feed.
Pelagic birds likely to be encountered offshore include greater, sooty, and manx shearwaters; northern fulmar, Wilson's storm-petrel, and northern gannet. On several offshore islands Atlantic puffins, razorbills, Leach's storm-petrels, and Arctic and common terns nest in the coast's largest seabird colonies. Ashore among the spruce and fir one can find spruce grouse, black-backed woodpecker, gray jay, boreal chickadee, olive-sided flycatcher, yellow-bellied flycatcher, Philadelphia vireo, and more than a dozen species of warblers.
Where to bird: East of Mount Desert Island, much of Downeast Maine is still remote with limited tourist traffic and services. Of all the regions in the state, this area offers probably the most interesting birding in terms of the species to be found--an area for serious birders to explore.
a.. Acadia National Park, Mount Desert Island (especially road to Bass Harbor Lighthouse, Ship Harbor trail, Big Heath); spruce forest, sphagnum bog, cove, headland, bay; boreal forest species, sea ducks.
b.. Schoodic Point, Winter Harbor; headland, ocean, spruce forest; winter pelagic birds, boreal forest species.
c.. Route 191, Machias to Lubec; various forest types, barren, heath, stream, headland, bay, ocean; breeding northern terrestrial and maritime species, wintering raptors, pelagics.
d.. Machias Seal Island, offshore from Cutler; seabird colony; alcids, terns, pelagic species.
e.. Lubec Flats, Lubec; tidal flats; migrating shorebirds, particularly in August and early September.
f.. Quoddy Head, Lubec; spruce-fir forest, headland, ocean; boreal forest birds, waterfowl, pelagic species.
g.. Passamaquoddy Bay, Eastport; bay; phalaropes, gulls, eagles.
(Above excerpt from an on-line article by Norman C. Famous)
For more information, please visit:
Birding Down East Maine - website
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Birding Down East Maine - website
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