Column: You can help scientists uncover the secret lives of Maine birds

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • January 19, 2023

Any idiot can be a citizen scientist, which is how I found myself in the woods west of the Allagash last weekend. For the last five years, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has been working on a Maine Bird Atlas, recruiting volunteers and sending them out statewide to look for birds. The summer breeding bird component finished last August, but the fifth year of the winter survey is in full swing right now. It still needs volunteers. Citizen science projects abound. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers Project FeederWatch, Project NestWatch and the Great Backyard Bird Count. For these, citizen scientists don’t even have to leave the house! Check out Birds.Cornell.edu/citizenscience. Maine Audubon runs the annual Maine Loon Count on the third Saturday of July. Visit MaineAudubon.org/projects/loons/annual-loon-count. ~ Bob Duchesne