Bob Duschesne has traipsed into a lot of remote and remarkable areas across our state to assemble an attractive list of some 260 places to watch and hear birds, as well as to enjoy the view.
About the only place he writes about that he hasn’t actually been to, he said, is Matinicus, Maine’s outermost inhabited island and a good place watch sea birds and avoid crowds. The book is written in an easygoing style. It’s not flawless; he mentions a fish cannery in Rockland and the city hasn’t had one in years. The road up Clarry Hill in Union is public, not private. But overall the information is accurate.
From the seemingly tame spruce grouse to the extremely rare boreal owl, from the American Woodcock to the Bohemian Waxwing, you can find where to find them, maybe, in the pages of Maine Birding Trail.
Duschesne timed his book to coincide with establishing of a Maine Birding Trail (see www.mainebirdingtrail.com), a project he launched five years ago. You don’t have to follow it, but it lays out some great routes for spotting some dazzling birds, from the delicate grace of a ruby-throated hummingbird to the stunningly well-dressed Atlantic puffin.
A champion of combining land protection with sustainable economic development, he believes eco-tourism is one way to do that. Birding is a low-impact activity in terms of the natural environment but it certainly can be good for the Maine economy.
It’s not one trail you can walk, but rather a series of places to explore, probably on foot, to enjoy being outdoors. You don’t have to sleep in the car the way Duchesne sometimes did, so he could be up early to spot some unusual bird. In fact, the author moseys through familiar tourist territory-such as Acadia National Park-knowing that it is one of the prime tourist destinations. In that sense, he follows human migration more than the birds’ habitat.
While not secret, many of the sites described here are not something you would necessarily know about without local knowledge. Duchesne digs up that information and presents it in a readable format, from beaches to highlands, Casco Bay to the Kennebec Valley.
He has researched and re-checked his facts, determined not to provide information that will get anybody lost. But best of all, he tells you what you might expect to see.
He ventures to the Canadian islands, Campobello and Grand Manan, to offer some tips on birding there. You can drive to Campobello from Lubec, Maine, but you have to take a ferry to reach Grand Manan in the Bay of Fundy. That boat ride itself is great for shearwaters and other pelagic species.
Duschesne is an outgoing guy who leads birding trips when not on legislative duty in Augusta. He said he’s been interested in birds since boyhood, first attracted by the bright colors of a goldfinch.
Why this book? Well, first because Bob Duschesne loves birding, but secondly because he believes it’s time for a fresh book on the subject. It’s been 28 years since Down East published The Birder’s Guide. The new book contains web sites to visit, and much information on lands conserved by local land trusts, larger private organizations and the state’s Land For Maine’s Future program, which began in 1987. That program has conserved or bought outright a great many special places threatened by greedy developers creating subdivisions, or their own kingdoms.
Of course, some of the useful tips in this book, such as the location and status of the Puffin Project in Rockland, could quickly become obsolete. But that’s a risk with any guidebook. Duschesne didn’t know, for example, that the Hog Island Audubon Camp in Muscongus Bay, where Roger Tory Peterson once taught, is closed this summer.
Duschesne, 55, lives in on Pushaw Pond in Hudson with his wife Sandi. After Colby College and the University of Maine, he spent a career in radio broadcasting and has been involved in community causes for years. He is a Democratic state representative serving on the Natural Resources Committee.
He must have contacted nearly every known birder for this book. The list of acknowledgments is a who’s who of birding experts. He is a Maine Audubon Society trustee and has been a local chapter president.
This is a useful little guidebook and many Mainers and visitors from away will find it a nifty thing to slip into a daypack alongside your Peterson, Sibley or similar bible of bird identifying books.