Since the late 1990s, enthusiastic birders have been flocking to Mount Desert Island every year, to celebrate the diversity of songbirds, seabirds and raptors found in Acadia National Park and surrounding areas.
This year is the 20th anniversary of the Acadia Birding Festival (Image courtesy of Acadia Birding Festival)
Now, as the Acadia Birding Festival marks its 20th anniversary from May 31 to June 3, the gathering comes at a time of urgency, as a new Audubon and National Park Service study identifies as many as 66 species of Acadia birds that could become locally extinct by the year 2050, if nothing is done to reduce the impacts of climate change.
This year has been declared the Year of the Bird, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that protects birds, and sound the alarm about climate change’s potential impact and other environmental threats, with the hope of preventing species from becoming modern-day equivalents of the canary in a coal mine.
The Bald Eagle and 11 other bird species could become locally extinct in winter in Acadia, according to a new study. (NPS photo)
In an interview, Becky Marvil, executive director of the Acadia Birding Festival, said it is disheartening to see the findings of studies such as the effects of climate change on birds in U.S. National Parks. As more and more data are released, it appears the consequences of climate change could be more damaging to birds than anyone imagined, she said.
“It’s very sad,” she said. “A lot of birders have been aware of this for quite some time.”
Marvil said the Year of the Bird is important because it brings awareness to birds and the importance of habitat, conservation, and the environment.
“It’s a year of thinking of all the things that affect birds,” agreed Michael J. Good, a Registered Maine Guide and owner of Down East Nature Tours, and founder of the Acadia Birding Festival. And that means not only addressing climate change and conservation of habitat, but also cleaning up plastic, which seabirds can mistake for food, leading to death, he said in an interview.
Among the Acadia birds expected to be celebrated at the birding festival, according to festival trip descriptions, but also at risk of becoming locally extinct (extirpated) in summer or winter by 2050 if no steps are taken to address climate change, according to climate change researchers: Bald Eagle; Yellow-bellied Flycatcher; Pileated Woodpecker; Common Raven; and Common Loon.
The Common Loon is one of 66 species of Acadia birds identified as at risk of becoming locally extinct in summer or winter by the year 2050 if nothing is done to address climate change, according to a new study on the potential impact of climate change on birds in national parks. (NPS photo)
Acadia Birding Festival features field trips, lectures, puffin boat tour
From looking for peregrine falcons at the top of Beech Cliff or from the base of the Precipice, to going on a tour of birding hotspots or an owl and night creature prowl, participants in the birding festival have a host of events to choose from over the May 31 – June 3 festival.
Among the highlights, a few of which are held before and after the festival: Trip to Saddleback Mountain in search of Bicknell’s Thrush; tour of Park Loop Road birding hotspots; boat trip to view Atlantic puffins and other pelagic seabirds; and keynote speeches by Laura Erickson, host of “For the Birds” that airs on public radio and available as a podcast; Marshall Iliff, eBird project leader for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology; and Raymond VanBuskirk, owner of Brant Nature Tours in New Mexico.
Colonies of Atlantic Puffins are too far offshore to be seen from Acadia National Park, but Acadia Birding Festival attendees can take a boat trip to view them. (US Fish and Wildlife Service photo)
About 300 registrants are signed up so far to attend the festival, including people from all over the country such as California, Arizona and Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland and other New England states, a sizable increase since the first festival 20 years ago, when about 35 to 40 people attended. In addition, about 45-50 guide leaders will attend to run field trips.
The festival, among several occurring in Maine around the same time, is held late May into early June for a reason.
“If we did it a week or so earlier, the warblers might be more at their height of singing and visibility but the pelagic birds, it would be too early for them,” said Marvil, the executive director since 2011, and who has a master’s degree in ornithology from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The Atlantic Puffin is listed as threatened in Maine. (US Fish and Wildlife Service photo)
As long as the Pelagic Seabird Boat Trip is not canceled due to weather, Marvil said participants are assured of seeing Atlantic Puffin, which are found only in the North Atlantic Ocean, as well as, for instance, Razorbills, Arctic and Common Terns and, if lucky, Roseate Terns. The trip, held on the 112-foot-long Friendship V, travels to Petit Manan Island, a critical spot in the Gulf of Maine for nesting seabirds. “We stay off shore of Petit Manan for a good half hour and watch the birds flying around,” she said.
While most of the festival’s estimated 60 field trips are in Acadia National Park and on Mount Desert Island, the festival also includes trips to the coast well north of Acadia National Park and to islands such as Frenchboro on Long Island and Little Cranberry Island.
Last year, participants counted 157 species of birds. There are always some rare sightings on Mount Desert Island. The showy Black-bellied Whistling Duck, normally from Texas, or a Lark Bunting from Colorado, for example, have been spotted in the past.
“We never know what to expect,” said Marvil.
Year of the Bird a call for action to build better world for birds
Every month during the Year of the Bird, organizers are asking bird lovers to take some form of meaningful action to protect birds.
One of the actions being highlighted for the month of May: Taking part in the National Audubon Society’s new Climate Watch, a citizen science program to document how birds are responding to climate change. The next survey, open to the public, runs from May 15 to June 15.
Hermit Thrush, thought to have one of the most beautiful songs of all birds, is seen here at Three Pines Bird Sanctuary. This is also one of the birds that a new Audubon and National Park Service study says could become locally extinct in summer in Acadia by the year 2050, if nothing is done to address climate change. (Photo courtesy of Michael J. Good)
Last month, organizers asked folks to work against attempts by the Trump administration and some members of Congress to weaken the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, by signing an online petition entitled “Stop Industries from Getting a Free Pass to Kill Birds.”
While 100 years ago, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act helped protect birds against hunters and poachers, the threats today, according to studies cited by Year of the Bird organizers: Power lines that kill up to 64 million birds a year; communications towers, up to 7 million birds a year; uncovered oil waste pits, another 500,000 to 1 million a year; and wind turbines, about 234,000 a year.
Then there’s climate change.
The National Audubon Society and National Park Service study that was released in March found that on average, 23 percent of bird species found in a given national park could be completely different by 2050 if carbon emissions continue at the current pace.
Some birds may become locally extinct at certain times of year, while other birds may move in and colonize, as climate changes.
In Acadia, the study estimates a higher turnover than average, of between 25 to 30 percent, with 60 of 143, or 42 percent, of summer Acadia bird species being extirpated by 2050, and 13 percent of winter bird species locally extinct by then.
At the same time, the study finds that Acadia may see as many as 45 new winter Acadia bird species, or an increase of 47 percent, and 12 new summer bird species, or an increase of 8 percent, as birds move with climate change.
Nashville Warbler, seen here near Mount Desert Island High School, sometimes uses porcupine quills to make nests. It is one of the 60 species of birds that a new study says could become locally extinct in Acadia in winter by the year 2050 if nothing is done to address climate change. (Photo courtesy of Michael J. Good)
Already, Good, founder of the Acadia Birding Festival, worries how climate change could affect the timing of the annual gathering. “Climate change was not an ‘issue’ ” when the festival first began, he said. “One fear of mine is that much of the ‘migration’ of land birds is shifting to earlier,” so that some of the early migrants will have already moved on by the time the festival is held in late May, early June.
“With climate change, there will be some birds brought to the brink in the Acadia area, while there will be new birds colonizing. Some might look forward to seeing a new species, while others might mourn the local extinction of others,” Good said.
But if some species, like Cowbirds, move in, that could “greatly impact our local populations,” he said. The Brown-headed Cowbird female is known for taking over other birds’ nests, laying eggs and abandoning the chicks to be raised by foster parents, to the detriment of other species.
“It is all about the winds,” Good said. “So if there is a sharp change in the type of spring storms or wind patterns each year due to climate change, then I suspect we could see differences in the types of migrants we find in Maine.”
Bottle caps and plastic toys have been found in the stomachs of dead albatrosses. An estimated 5 tons of plastics are inadvertently fed to albatross chicks a year at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. (USFWS photo)
But even independent of climate change, unusual wind patterns can lead to surprising finds, such as the Painted Bunting and Blue Grosbeak, normally found further south, that Good spotted on Mount Desert Island this spring.
For Good, perhaps of even greater concern than climate change: The need to protect bird habitat from fragmentation, improve water quality and fisheries, and reduce the use of plastics, which seabirds can mistake as food.
Acadia birds as seen through the lens of birding festival founder
Acadia Birding Festival founder Michael J. Good spotted this Blue Grosbeak on April 29 near Mount Desert Island High School. (Photo courtesy of Michael J.Good)
The Painted Bunting is normally found in the south, but this colorful bird was spotted in Bar Harbor on April 29 (Photo courtesy of Michael J. Good)
Broad-winged Hawk spotted at Babson Creek Preserve in Somesville (Photo courtesy of Michael J. Good)
Winter Wren with its upturned tail feathers, as seen earlier this month in Indian Point-Blagden Preserve. (Photo courtesy of Michael J. Good)
Merlin at Seawall on the lookout for prey, which may include sparrows, larks, waxwings and sandpipers. (Photo courtesy of Michael J. Good)
Black and White Warbler as seen near Mount Desert Island High School (Photo courtesy of Michael J. Good)
“A singer everyone has heard,” as described by Robert Frost in “The Ovenbird,” while Thoreau wrote in “Walden” that its song is “loud and unmistakable, making the hollow woods ring.” (Photo courtesy of Michael J. Good)
This was like no other article I’ve seen before for Acadia! We’ve been four time and love the park, but never got to know much about the birds.
We’re heading back in the fall to hike the Precipice Trail, which is usually closed due to the falcon nesting in the summer. We can’t wait and will keep our eye out for the birds that you called out in this article.
Thanks!
Thanks very much for the comment, and recognizing the hard work on the birding article, Peter. We are attending the festival this week and looking forward to it. The Precipice Trail should be quite a challenge and fun if you don’t mind heights. In case you have never tried it, Jordan Cliffs is another cliff trail worth hiking for its views over Jordan Pond. We also found it easier and more accessible than the Precipice, which we have hiked also.
Readers of this informative essay should be aware that roughly a hundred years ago the first park ornithologist, Henry Lane Eno (1871-1928), composed an essay on “The Birds of Old Farm: An Intimate Study of an Acadian Bird Sanctuary.” It was distributed widely as pamphlet #21 in The Sieur de Monts Publications which George B. Dorr established, edited, and contributed. Eno concludes by stating that “as we seem to know our feathered friends…their arrivals and departures, the peculiarities and life histories of individuals, the real motives which determine their varied activities–of all these we possess, as yet, but the most superficial knowledge…[for] their coming and going is still veiled in mystery.”
Ronald — Thanks for this note, which advances the whole issue of birds in Acadia. Your comment comes as we are currently re-reading your excellent book, “Creating Acadia National Park: The Biography of George Bucknam Dorr” and your comment prompted us to look up the section about Interior Secretary Franklin Knight Lane’s first visit to Mount Desert Island and the time he spent with Dorr and Eno amid America’s entry into World War I. You write about a letter Lane penned to Eno in the wake of that visit; in that letter, Lane wrote that his only regret of his time was that “we had too few good, mind-stretching talks, you Dorr and myself. But those we had were certainly not about affairs of small concern … The world was ours, and more — the worlds beyond.”