The Wrack

The Maine Bird Atlas has begun. Anyone can take part and we have some tips to share.

To celebrate 2018's Year of the Bird, a new slideshow of beautiful and ingenious bird photos by the late Tony King plays in our Visitor Center all summer long

If I just tallied the birds at the feeder outside my kitchen window, I might come to believe that the only bird in Maine is a rather fat and feisty cardinal. But that's not science.

Piping plovers start four nests on Laudholm Beach in 2017, but only one is successful.

A walk in the woods and a chance encounter lead to a path of discovery.

Uncommon goose makes a brief visit to the Little River marsh and becomes the latest addition to the Wells Reserve bird list.

For seven years strong, the Reserve has partnered with Center for Wildlife and York County Audubon to offer Winter Wildlife Day during Maine's school vacation week. Last week, on a balmy February morning with 50 degree temperatures, nearly 200 people attended this family-friendly free event. Some even stayed into the afternoon to sled down the farmhouse hill on the fast disappearing snowpack, and observe a snow sculpture artist in action.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 7/3/2016, and Making It At Home's 7/6/2016 issue.

Every morning as I make my coffee, I watch the birds at the bird feeder outside my kitchen window. The other day I noticed, perched on the deck railing near the feeder, a brownish-greyish bird throwing a temper tantrum.

Yesterday, the picnic table under the copper beech was covered with clipboards, bird books, and banding supplies for the first time since last summer. Around the table, a bird-banding team kept busy with catbirds, veeries, waxwings, and other species brought up from the nets. This long-term monitoring and research project has entered its 29th year (28th on the Laudholm campus) — but it's got a new look for 2016.

Dovekies, or little auks, are sea-going plankton consumers who tend to stay to our north. You're most likely to spot one from a boat or, with persistence, through a telescope at a good "sea-watching" site. I've never been so lucky; dovekie's on my wish list.