Biodiversity Research Institute

The Maine Bird Atlas was a massive collaborative effort among thousands of volunteers across the state, led by Maine Natural History Observatory and Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, in partnership with Maine Audubon and BRI!🌲

The second edition goes a step beyond showing distribution data and incorporates abundance estimates, moving from “where are the birds?” to “how many birds are there?” Nearly 10,000 point-count surveys were conducted to add information on occupancy and density. This creates a fuller picture of birdlife in Maine! 🦉

Dr. Evan Adams, co-director of QWERL (qwerl.org), created dozens of maps for the Atlas to visualize changes in species abundance and distribution across the state. Monitoring over time helps us understand how birds respond to changing habitat and land use – and creates baseline estimates to compare against. 📊🌎

Abundance data is useful for documenting habitat associations and can document range expansions, such as the Indigo Bunting’s northward creep farther into the boreal forest. Their range has expanded significantly over the past 40 years!

As they move northward, abundance estimates are useful to guide management efforts like timber harvest that can create suitable breeding habitat. Indigo Buntings are typically associated with shrubs and forest edges but also respond positively to regenerating forests, habitat associated with the industrial forest landscape of Maine’s North Woods. 🪵

As our eagle season winds down, the BRI raptor team invited some of our office folks to join them for a day in the field! 🦅

After carefully banding the eaglet, assessing its health, and collecting some samples, that eaglet was returned to its nest and it soon will be thinking of fledging! Once it leaves the natal area, it will be in search of reliable food resources such as Maine’s Sebasticook River - but young Maine eaglets commonly wander hundreds of miles away before eventually being drawn back to the general vicinity of “home”, sometimes years later.

We are grateful to the many private landowners, land trusts and agencies that are key stewards of Maine’s Bald Eagle population and allow us to access their land for this important work!