Fwd: Birding Lunch & Learn March 18th @ Schupf Center 11:30 am - 1:00 pm in downtown Waterville
Diane Weinstein
Greetings Waterville Area Birding Enthusiasts and Friends
Our next Lunch & Learn is Wednesday March 18th from 11:30 am – 1:00 pm in the lobby of the Schupf Center in downtown Waterville.
This is the building with the large glass windows bordering Castonguay Square and also the location of the Maine Film Center. We meet weekly on the west side of the lobby where you can see Main Street on either the 1st or 2nd floor. After the meeting some folks may do a little birding nearby, so you may want to bring your binoculars, boots and hand warmers!
Tuesday March 17, 2026 from 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Tuesday March 24, 2026 from 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Tuesday March 31, 2026 from 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Spring Birdwatching Class
Waterville Site - Mid-Maine Adult Education
Ian Lynch, Instructor
*REGISTER ASAP
Many of you know Ian as a local Waterville Area Birding Enthusiast who has done extensive birding in Maine as well as many other states; he is a regular participant in Christmas Bird Counts, "Big Day" Events, banding birds and rescuing those that have been injured.
This course is designed to help you move beyond your backyard to identifying the birds that surround us, particularly those that will be passing through our area in the spring. The level of experience of the participants will shape what material is covered. The first class will cover the basics of equipment and technique, unless all the students have taken a previous course with the instructor. We will practice identification by sight as well as sound, focusing on warblers, thrushes, and raptors, concentrating on expected species and moving into rarities as time allows.
Thursdays, March 19, & 26 at 6:00 - 7:30 PM:
KENNEBEC LAND TRUST 2026 Lyceum Lecture Series
The Maine Bird Atlas: New Information On Breeding And Wintering Birds In Maine
Hallowell City Hall Auditorium
1 Winthrop St., Hallowell, ME
(207) 377 - 2848 | in...@tklt.org | www.tklt.org
Light refreshments will be provided.
Thursday, March 19 (6:00–7:30 p.m.) – Breeding Birds of Kennebec County: 1890s to the Present
Glenn Hodgkins of the Augusta Birding Club will examine how bird communities in Kennebec County have changed over the past 130 years, drawing on historic records and recent atlas data.
Thursday, March 26 (6:00–7:30 p.m.) – Moonlight Sonata: Maine’s Nightjars
Logan Parker of the Maine Natural History Observatory will explore the ecology and conservation of the Eastern Whip-poor-will and Common Nighthawk, two species that have experienced significant declines.
This is a three-part series exploring what the Maine Bird Atlas reveals about bird populations across the state and here in Kennebec County. Learn how breeding and wintering birds are changing over time and what the data mean for conservation in Maine. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in partnership with Maine Natural History Observatory, Maine Audubon, and Biodiversity Research Institute collaborated on this project. The data collection phase was from 2018-2022 with the help of hundreds of volunteers. The Maine Bird Atlas will be published this year and feature more than 1,600 maps and photographs, making it the most comprehensive book on Maine breeding and wintering birds ever produced. The cross-agency editorial team included Glen Mittelhauser and Logan Parker (MNHO), Adrienne Leppold and Amy Meehan McLaughlin (MDIFW), Evan Adams (BRI), and Doug Hitchcox (Maine Audubon), as well as 75 contributing authors and 69 contributing photographers. KLT’s March Lyceum and the associated field program are supported by The Helen and George Ladd Family and sponsored by the Augusta Birding Club, which promotes bird study, conservation, and education in central Maine.
Wednesday March 25, 2026 at 11:30 am – 1:00 pm
Serena Sanborn: Bird Drawings and Explorations
A Waterville Area Bird Enthusiasts Lunch & Learn Special Event
Serena Sanborn is a science communicator, artist and arts educator who designs experiences where creativity and ecology meet. As Manager of Outreach and Community Partnerships at Waterville Creates, she builds programs that invite people of all ages to explore big ideas through hands-on artmaking and close observation of the natural world. A certified Maine Master Naturalist, Serena leads trail walks, nature journaling sessions, and participatory projects that blend scientific inquiry with creative expression. Her work centers curiosity, connection, and wonder—helping communities see art and science not as separate disciplines, but as shared ways of paying attention.
APRIL SPECIAL EVENTS
*Tuesday April 7th, from 1:00-3:30pm. Waterville Public Library:
*Tuesday April 14th, from 6:00-7:00pm. Lithgow Public Library (Augusta)
*Wednesday April 15th, from 9:30am-11:00am. Winslow Public Library
Birding for a Better World Public Library Book Club
Ashton Wesner PhD, Assistant Professor in Science, Technology, & Society | Colby College, has shared another opportunity for local birders to interact with Colby College students!
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MAY SPECIAL EVENTS
New World Blackbird or Icteridae Family
With many spring returning birds from the New World Blackbird or Icteridae family, also called Icterids, I thought I would provide some information about them. The Icteridae, family of passerines, also known as songbirds, contains 108 species and is divided into 30 genera. Most species have black as a predominant plumage color, often enlivened by yellow, orange, or red. They are distinct from Old World Blackbirds, which are actually thrushes.
Though Icterids are diverse in color and lifestyle, you can best identify them by their long, sharp, pointed conical bills and long, pointed wings. They vary in color from the glossy black of blackbirds to the bright yellow and orange of the oriole. Females are usually smaller and duller than males. Most birds in this family forage on the ground for insects and seeds. Members we see in Maine include Red-winged blackbirds, Common Grackles, Brown-headed Cowbirds, Baltimore Orioles and some Orchard Orioles, Eastern Meadowlarks and Northern Bobolinks. Those not seen in the US include Oropendolas, and Caciques. Common black Icterids often travel together in mixed flocks. Do remember that when people talk about “black birds” they may be including birds in other families as discussed in one of the short videos below while the other video plays bird song for 10 Icterids.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLGMcY4xZ0L/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRVhzGRkVTE/?hl=en
Red-winged Blackbird. This common backyard bird is usually the first of the summer migrants to arrive. The male Red-winged Blackbird has a red and yellow patch on its shoulder, but sometimes only the yellow shows. The female is more subdued in color, with a streaked brown body and white eyebrow. Red-winged Blackbirds love swamps and marshy areas. The bulk of their diet is insects, but they love almost any kind of birdseed available!
Common Grackle. The Common Grackle is another summer migrant. The male has a black body and an iridescent blue/black head. The females are similar to males, but smaller and a little duller. Grackles dine on fruit, insects, and, of course, birdseed.
Brown-headed Cowbird. Brown-headed Cowbirds are a oparasitic bird. Instead of building their own nests, females lay eggs in existing nests of other species, abandoning their young to be raised by unsuspecting foster parents. Like other blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbirds are summer migrants. Males are a glossy black with a chocolate brown head. Females are slightly duller in color and have a streaked chest. Cowbirds eat insects and seeds, the latter which includes most any kind of birdseed.
Baltimore Oriole. One of the most brilliantly colored songbirds in the east, flaming orange and black, sharing the heraldic colors of the coat of arms of 17th-century Lord Baltimore. Widespread east of the Great Plains, Baltimore Oriole habitat includes open woods, riverside groves, elms, shade trees. They breed in deciduous or mixed woodland, generally in open woods or edges rather than interior of dense forest and may be common in trees in towns. Winters mostly in the tropics around forest edge and semi-open country.
Unlike robins and many other fruit-eating birds, Baltimore Orioles seem to prefer only ripe, dark-colored fruit. Orioles seek out the darkest mulberries, the reddest cherries, and the deepest-purple grapes, and will ignore green grapes and yellow cherries even if they are ripe. The Baltimore Oriole hybridizes extensively with the Bullock's Oriole where their ranges overlap in the Great Plains. The two species were considered the same for a while and called the Northern Oriole, but in the 1990s, after genetic studies, they were separated again. Young male Baltimore Orioles do not molt into bright-orange adult plumage until the fall of their second year. Still, a few first-year males in drab, female-like plumage succeed in attracting a mate and raising young. Females become deeper orange with every molt; some older females are almost as bright orange as males. Their bag-shaped hanging nests, artfully woven of plant fibers, are familiar sights in the shade trees in towns. This bird was
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Eastern Meadowlark. The Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna) is a stocky, robin-sized grassland songbird with a bright yellow breast, a distinct black "V" chevron, and white outer tail feathers visible in flight, residing in Maine's open areas. In Maine, they thrive in open habitats like agricultural pastures, hayfields, and neglected fields, with populations concentrated in the southern and central regions. While often inseparable by plumage, females are generally slightly smaller and duller than males, particularly in breeding plumage.
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Bobolink. The Bobolink is one of the world’s most impressive songbird migrants, traveling some 12,500 miles (20,000 kilometers) to and from southern South America every year. Throughout its lifetime, it may travel the equivalent of 4 or 5 times around the circumference of the earth. The species name of the Bobolink, oryzivorus means “rice eating” and refers to this bird’s appetite for rice and other grains, especially during migration and in winter. A migrating Bobolink can orient itself with the earth’s magnetic field, thanks to iron oxide in bristles of its nasal cavity and in tissues around the olfactory bulb and nerve. Bobolinks also use the starry night sky to guide their travels.
Bobolink molt twice a year, completely changing all their feathers on both the breeding and wintering grounds. When the male grows new feathers on the wintering grounds they all have yellowish tips, so he still looks like a nonbreeding bird. Eventually the pale tips wear off to reveal his striking black-and-white breeding colors. Normally a daylight forager, the Bobolink sometimes feeds after dark on bright nights during migration, to build fat reserves for its long flight over the Gulf of Mexico. Bobolinks are often polygynous, meaning that males may have several mates per breeding season but they’re also often polyandrous: each clutch of eggs laid by a single female may have multiple fathers.
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