 And I'm really pleased to be with you all here tonight. My name is Sally Stockwell, as Nancy said, Director of Conservation at Maine Audubon. I'm a wildlife ecologist by training. And tonight I'm going to talk with you about snowbirds. You have to figure out how to, there we go. So my mom is a snowbird. Some of you may be snowbirds. Some of you may know other people who are snowbirds. Every winter, my mom flies from Saint Paul, Minnesota where she lives down to Fountain Hills in Arizona, outside Phoenix, where she can enjoy the sunshine and the warm weather and fresh fruits and vegetables and have, I get to go visit her and will along with my daughter and other canine friends. And it's a really wonderful respite from the cold snowy winters. So you get these beautiful scenes of desert, flora and fauna and all kinds of wonderful birds that show up there in other wildlife that we don't see here in Maine at all. And yet, when we think of snowbird, you know, a lot of people here in Maine go down to Florida for the winter or other places. But we have a lot of birds who are snowbirds as well. And that's what I'm really going to focus on here tonight. This is kind of a follow-up to an article that I wrote for our Maine Audubon Magazine Habitat last winter called Snowbirds. And I'm gonna just run through some of the things that I talked about in that program, in that article, but also elaborate on a few other things. So first of all, I'm going to take us on a visit to forests. We have many different forests here in Maine. 95% of the state is forested and our forest birds really depend on Maine for their long-term survival. As you can see on the map on the right-hand side here that was put together by National Audubon a number of years ago, Maine has the largest block of intact forest left in the Eastern U.S. And that big green blob just jumps right out. And as a result of that, we are home to 90 different forest birds that breed here in the state. And you'll see on the left there photos of 20 different species we've identified as being representative of different species that use different kinds of habitats and different types of forests within the state. So I'm gonna run through a little bit of those for starters. We know that each one of these different species uses a different type of forest, whether it's a coniferous or Northern softwood forest, a mixed woods forest, or a deciduous or Northern hardwood forest. We also have oak pine forest here in Maine, four Maine forest types. And each one of these species, you can see some of them prefer softwoods, some of them like mixed woods, some of them like more hardwoods or deciduous trees. And then you have species that like to sit right in the top of the trees like blackburnian warblers or scarlet tannagers. You have others that like to be right down on the forest floor like Canada warblers or American woodcock. And then you have some species that like these gap openings in the forest like Eastern wood pewees or young forests that grows up in those gaps like chestnut sided warblers. And then those species that really depend on dead standing wood like yellow bellied sap suckers or Northern flickers. So this just gives you an idea of all the different, how different species are spread apart in the forest. And on the right hand side, you'll see a little map of how different species have different migratory pathways. And I'm gonna elaborate on that a little bit as we go through the evening. So we know from a study that came out in 2019 that many of our birds across all kinds of different habitat types have seen remarkable declines in the last 40 to 50 years. Our Eastern forest birds have experienced about a, oh, I can't see what's at the top there. 17% decline, our Arctic tundra birds, 23% decline. Our boreal forest birds, 33% decline. Shorebirds and grassland birds even bigger declines. And this is based on national breeding bird survey data plus a host of other long-term data sets. So it means that these birds are really struggling and anything we can do here in Maine to help them is gonna be really great. And we have a big opportunity to do that. So here are some of our boreal bird species. You can see black pole warblers, big-nails thrushes, boreal chickadees. These are species that, generally speaking, are only found in a boreal forest of Northern Maine and the Canadian provinces. And so there are people that come to Maine from all over the country to see these boreal birds. And they love to go hunting for big-nails thrush or black pole warblers. Last year I was at the Rainsley Lakes Brewing Festival and I went on a day trip to in search of black pole warblers and big-nails thrush up on Saddleback Mountain. And we got to the top of the mountain. We hadn't seen any big-nails thrush. We kept going to the horn, which is quite a hike if any of you have been up there. And on the way back, I thought, well, we had a wonderful hike, but we're probably not gonna see big-nails, but I was stopped for a little rest and I listened and all of a sudden I was like, oh my gosh, I think that might be the big-nails. And I looked over there and there was this big-nails perched right on the top of a stunted spruce tree, which is exactly where they like to breed. And I got a really excellent view of thrush. So I was pretty excited about that. Rusty blackbirds are one of those birds that have seen almost a 90% decline in the last 10 or more years. And so I have some colleagues that are doing rusty blackbird research up in Northwestern Maine, on the border with New Hampshire in the Ranger Lakes area. And they have been able to put these new little nanotags on these rusty blackbirds and track their movement. What they're finding is that these rusty blackbirds, they like to nest in wetlands in the middle of the forest. So they have been moving from up on the border New Hampshire, Maine, all the way down along the Eastern Seaboard and were able to track individual movements and how those individuals differ over time. And then here's an array of species that like our Northern softwood forests. One of my favorite is the Bay breasted warbler. Bay breasted are really tied to the cycles of the... I can't think of the word right now. But anyway, the cycles of a certain caterpillar. And when those caterpillars are abundant, then the Bay breasted warblers and other of our warblers respond in kind and their population levels explode. And I saw this a couple of years ago up in Quebec when that was happening. So most of these birds are migratory. Our blackbacked woodpeckers stay all year round but the rest and our boreal chickadees, but the others are migratory. And one of the most amazing migratory stories that I know of our forest birds is with the blackpool warbler. Blackpool warblers, you can see over here, they actually, they breed here in Maine and then across the Northern tier of the continent. But in the fall, they all come to Maine and the Maritimes and literally jump off the coast and fly nonstop. 88 hours, 1,800 miles down to Central South America, East of the Andes and Brazil and areas like that. And then in the spring, they follow two different pathways back up, either the Midwest flyway or the Atlantic flyway. But think about that, this tiny little bird has to double its weight in order to make that trip every year. And then here's a number of birds that we often see in our Northern mixed woods. If you've never seen a blackburning warbler, I have to say when they're perched up on the top of the tree and the sun is shining on them, that orange breast just about knocks your socks off. It is so brilliant and so wonderful. And then we've got black-throated blue warblers that love to nest in hobble bush down on the forest floor. So all these species are using different habitat features in the woods and Canada warblers that nest right down on the forest floor are one of our species that has seen very dramatic declines. And what you can see here is that they breed in the Northern areas, Maine and North. They migrate across the Eastern US down through Mexico and then they spend the winter all the way down here in the Northwestern part of South America. And oftentimes, excuse me, when these birds go to their wintering areas, they're actually found in somewhat different habitats and we tend to think of them as breeding here in Maine. Our Northern hardwood priority species, we've got species like the Eastern woodpeaweed, the yellow-billed sapsucker, veeries, chestnut-sided warblers. And our veery is another species that they love to nest on the ground. They've got that wonderful waterfall song that goes veer, veer, veer, veer, veer, veer. And again, they nest pretty far north. They migrate through the, across the Eastern US down through Mexico, the Central America and into South America all the way into the middle part of the continent. Our, excuse me, our oak pine birds include favorites like the woodthrush or the ovenbird. Ovenbird, probably many of you have heard when you're out in the woods, it goes teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher. And it's named, called an ovenbird because it builds a little nest right on the floor out of leaf litter with a little side entrance that looks kind of like a small oven. Scarlet tanagers are one of those birds that when the first time you see one, you will never forget it and you can't mix it up with anything else because it is the only bird out in the forest that is the brilliant red with black wings. And as I mentioned, they like to be ray up in the tops of trees, preferably large oak trees with a full canopy when they are breeding here in Maine. But then in the wintertime, they migrate all the way down to South America. And we even have some tree nesting bats that spend the summer here with us in Maine, but then migrate to the Southern part of the US for their winter and they actually hibernate when they get down into this Southern range here. So this is an Eastern red bat and they will breed in the fall, but then have their pups in the following spring. So these are not cave dwelling bats. They roost under the bark of trees or other protected areas. And then when they head down south, they will find similar places to sort of rest and hide during those winter months. Then nobody really knows what their migratory pathway is. We just know that this is where they kind of show up. This is the area in which they show up during the wintertime. So now let's move from forest to some other habitat types. As I mentioned, forest occur in 95% of our state, but we know that within that forested matrix, we have lots of streams and wetlands and other types of habitats as well. So one of our iconic species that we associate with wetlands is the wood duck. Wood ducks are beautiful. Here's a wonderful picture of female and male. And you can find them in streams, spawns, wetlands. They use a variety of habitat types, but I mean, you've probably seen wood duck boxes posted all over the place, but they're natural nesting habitat as cavities in trees and that can be 10, 15 feet off the ground. And they will sometimes nest as far as a half a mile or a mile away from water. They raise their young in that nest cavity in the tree and then they will bring the young to the water after they are old enough to get out of the nest themselves. So this is what we would call more of a short distance migrate because it breeds here in the Northeast, but then our wood ducks migrate south for the winter and they can go down to either mostly to the southeastern US but sometimes even to Texas and Mexico. But there's also a populations in states that are further south that don't have to migrate because the water doesn't freeze. And so they're there all year round. So you get a mix of sort of year round residence and migratory birds as well. And then in our title marshes, we have saltmarsh sparrows. Here we are, I was helping folks from the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge try to flush some of these saltmarsh sparrows. So they would go into misnets where we could capture them and then ban them to try to track their breeding success. Saltmarsh sparrows are very, they're being proposed for listing as a either threatened or endangered species because their populations are so low. But in addition to that, they face tremendous threats from sea level rise associated with climate change. These birds nest in the high marsh and the eggs and the young are adapted to being flooded occasionally. So they try to time their nesting cycle in between the highest tide cycles. But even so, sometimes a tide will come in and the eggs might float a little bit in the water and then they'll go back down into the nest. Or the chicks can actually climb up on the grasses and then climb back down after the water recedes. But now we're finding that, again, with sea level rise we're getting higher tides, we're getting more flooding of that high marsh. And so their breeding habitat is really at risk. And there's been some interesting work done recently with saltmarsh sparrows to try to figure out where do they go and where the wintering habitats that we need to pay attention to in addition to their summering habitats. So this is a little map of different individual saltmarsh sparrows that were tagged and then tracked along the eastern seaboard. And you can see that there's a whole bunch of them that sort of gather right here in southern Connecticut. And then they go down again and often and they kind of hang out in this Delaware Bay area. And then, believe it or not, in addition to monarch butterflies, we have dragonflies that migrate and have multiple generations, just like monarch butterflies do. And this was just recently discovered within the last several years. And this graphic here was taken from a paper that I read that shows what their migratory history is. So July and August, the adults are up here in the northern part of the state, at states. And then they go down, these individuals will actually migrate. This is what's called generation two. They will actually migrate south and they go down to the southern states, hang out there during November, January, February. They have another, they lay their eggs, the young hatch. They are non-migratory. They stay down there during those months. Then those young hatch and then those young move north in generation one. And they lay their eggs and the young then hatch out, have another generation, generation two, which heads back south. And then you have the southern non-migratory stage and then another migratory stage. So I think it's just fascinating that these dragonflies can do that. And you may or may not know, but dragonflies spend most of their life in water as nymphs, this larval stage. And so the adults are really quite short lived. So for them to be able to hatch and then migrate all the way down across the states is a pretty remarkable feat. So now let's move to our lakes. Of course, everybody knows the common loon and loons breed here. We all think of loons as being our birds or our main birds. They nest right on the lakeshore and these nests that just are kind of a blue pile of mud and vegetation. And they raise one to two chicks most years, not necessarily every year. But what happens to them when the ice freezes over, right? They disappear. Well, we know that they go out to the... Well, first, after they're done nesting and before the ice comes in, they like to gather in these fall migration groups. And they're very social at this time of year. The other times of year, they're not necessarily so social when they're breeding. But during the fall, this time of year, you might see as many as 30 or 50 loons on one lake that are just kind of hanging out together before they leave for the winter. And come winter, they head to the ocean. This is what the juveniles look like right here. And the juveniles will head to the ocean and stay on the ocean for three to five years before coming back to search for a breeding site. But on the ocean in the wintertime, you might also come across this loon, which is not our common loon. This loon is a red-throated loon. And this is what they look like in breeding habitat. They breed north of us in Canada. And then they come down south for the winter and they sometimes hang out off the coast here. Our main birds, both the adults and the juveniles, will head to the ocean. Some of them hang out right off the coast of Maine, but others go down to Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and even New Jersey. We know this from some tracking data, but also a number of years ago, there was a big oil spill that occurred off the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. And as a result of that, it was in 2011, so almost 10 years, 11 years later, we've finally gotten, we and a number of other organizations across New England have gotten some funding through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to try to help increase nesting success of these birds to recover some of the birds that were lost during that oil spill. There were many hundreds of birds that died as a result of that. Oops. Okay, so another type of habitat that we have in Maine that we don't have a lot of, but is very important are our grasslands. And our grassland birds, as you might remember from the beginning of my talk are one of those groups of birds that has declined really badly over the last 40 years as our practices have changed around farming and whatnot, spraying herbicides, all kinds of things. But this, the most common species we have that do still nest in our grasslands are bobbleinx. You can see a female right here and a male. We also have eastern meadowlarks and savannah sparrows that breed in our grasslands. And just this past year, Maynardabon teamed up with Egg Allies, which is a program run by the Soil and Water Conservation District in the Somerset County, to try to work with farmers to get them interested in helping provide better nesting habitat for these birds. If you hay these fields too early, then the young can't survive and they won't be successful. But these birds kind of have an interesting migratory history as well. Here's a map on the left that shows birds that were tagged in Maine and also other New England states that are traveling along the coast of the east for a number of days. But then, and here's over here, you can see each one of these dots is a place where a particular male bobberlink was tracked and eventually made it down to the southeastern US and then hopped across the Caribbean and down to South America where they spend the winter. Beaches are another type of habitat that we don't have a lot of, but are really important for certain species. Maynardabon's been working to help protect nesting areas for piping plovers and lease turns for many, many years, over 35 years. And it's a challenge, right? Because you've got all these houses that are lining on the beach and then you've got these birds that are trying to nest. There's all kinds of predators trying to go after them. Our piping plovers, we tend to put up these exposures around each nest if we can. Here's one sitting on eggs inside one of these exposures that helps reduce the predation on these animals. And then down here, you'll see these tiny little chicks that kind of look like cotton balls on sticks. And they are very vulnerable to disturbance being chased by dogs, taken by crows, whatever it might be. And then we also have our lease turns that are colonial nesting birds that nest often in close proximity to these piping plovers. So just a couple of years ago, a new discovery was made as to where these piping plovers go in the winter. And this is what their winter habitat looks like. Don't you wish you could be there sometime this winter? I mean, it's just gorgeous. Here's another photo. These are such great photos that came from National Audubon. I just had to share them. These are our Bahama plovers. And we have actually seen, we can't put any bands on plovers here in Maine because they are endangered, but there has been some banding work done in Canada and also in the Bahamas here. So we know that we have at least one male plover that regularly goes back and forth between nesting in Maine and spending the winter in the Bahamas. And here's a close-up of them right down along the rocky shores there in the Bahamas. But we also, in addition to those birds that nest on our beaches, we also have many different species of migrating shorebirds that come through Maine both in the spring and in the fall. And in particularly in the fall is a time when they are really trying to fuel up before they make their long migrations, many of them down to the Caribbean, to Central America, South America. And they, you can see them everywhere from the mudflats in Lubeck down to the beaches in Kittery. And it's really fun to watch them. Often you'll see these big flocks of them that move together, but they really like to spend most of their time feeding and then resting. And when you have a lot of activity on beaches or the mudflats, then that interrupts their activity and makes it harder for them to put on the fat they need for their migration. Here's a few different species that you might see this time of year actually right out on the beaches. And then a number of years ago, there's some folks in Pennsylvania that we've been working with on some migratory efforts that I'll talk a little bit more about at the end. But they put up some towers to track movements of various species coming through Pennsylvania. And for the first time ever, discovered that these red knots who were listed as a federally endangered a few years ago are flying from the coast. We tend to think of shorebirds as following the coastline when they're going north and south. But in fact, these red knots are flying from the Delaware, New Jersey area across Pennsylvania up to their northern Arctic areas where they breed. And that was a brand new discovery as of just a couple of years ago. So there are many migration mysteries that are still out there waiting for us to learn about. So here's just kind of a quick summary of what we've been through so far. It shows a map of where these different species go from summer to winter. And here we've got our looms just off the coast of Maine or slightly south of us. We've got the piping plowers that are going down to southern Maine or the Bahamas. We've got the salt marsh sparrow that kind of follows the coastline down to, they stay right in salt marshes all the way down along the coast. Our eastern red bat goes down to the southeast somehow they get there. We don't really know exactly how. Same with those diner dragonflies. And then we've got wood ducks that some of the wood ducks just go to southern U.S. some of them go all the way down into Mexico. And then of course we have our long distance migraine grunts like the black pole warbler and our bobbling stat head down to South America. But we also have some birds that don't really migrate north-south but they do still migrate. We have many species that nest out on the islands off of the coast of Maine. We've got lapping gulls, puffins and guillomots. And if any of you have the opportunity to go out on a cruise out to any of these islands, it's kind of amazing just to see how many birds are nesting on one little tiny island. And of course we have our iconic Atlantic puffins and they, but all of these birds are what we would call pelagic birds. Excuse me, they spend their entire life out on the ocean. So when they're done nesting, they don't fly south, they just fly out to the ocean and they cruise around in the ocean and then they eventually make their way back to their nesting sites. A number of turns, common turns, nest out on our islands as well. And here's a map of their breeding area is pretty far north, including some spots along Maine. But then they tend to, these common turns do actually migrate south and spend the winter along the coast, Gulf of Mexico or further south. And now we come to the true snowbirds. And the term snowbirds was actually originally tied to this fellow right here, Dark-eyed Junkos because the true snowbirds are those birds that basically hang out in winter wherever they go. They're very comfortable in Northern Climes. We see Junkos all throughout the winter here in Maine. They were the original snowbird nickname was given to Dark-eyed Junkos. And then of course it's been used to apply to many other species, including ourselves since then. One of my favorite snowbirds is the snow bunting. Snow buntings breed in far Northern Canada, but in the wintertime, we can see them here in Maine. And the first time I ever saw one in Maine, I was when I was climbing to the, my first climb ever to the top of Mount Katahdin. It was late fall and we got up to the top and the snow was kind of swirling around and it was super windy. And we weren't even sure we were gonna make it to the top because it was pretty iffy weather. And all of a sudden I saw this big flock of snow bunting just go whoosh and just whist across the scene in front of me because the wind was so strong. It was quite remarkable. So we decided if they could do it, we could make it to the top too, which we did. But then we turned around quickly and went back down. But I also see that see snow buntings like this sometimes in the fields just down at the end of the road by my house, the hayfields where they will come and hang out in the winter and they feed on grains and insects. This is a male, this is what a non-breeding might look like here. So they really are one of my favorites. But then we also have things like pine siskins, hoary red-polls and red-gross beaks that will sometimes show up. They're unpredictable as to whether they're gonna show up or not. I just happened across a great article by Herb Wilson last weekend though that he's a retired professor, ornithology professor from Colby College. And he said that based on work that a colleague of his had done looking where the cone crops are this year, we can expect to see pine siskins searching for white cedar cones here in Maine this year because we've had a pretty good cone year for that. And also red-polls for bird seeds. These are birds that will stay in the North country, even farther north from us, as long as there are good food resources there, basically seeds. But if not, they will come south looking for those good seed patches. And so every once in a while we get to see these wonderful birds. And then red-gross beaks, they're primarily a fruit eater. So they will sometimes show up here in Maine but also go further south. And then we've got two different species of crossbills, red crossbills and white-wing crossbills. And a prediction is watch for a visit from northeastern red crossbills because we've had a strong pine cone crop this year and other parts of the country have not. So you can see here the map of they are nesting in far northern, north of us typically, but then they will come down into hearts of the US depending on where the good cone crops are. Same for these white-winged crossbills. And although they tend to eat smaller seeds than the red crossbills, they're looking for smaller spruce cones, which we didn't have a great year of spruce cones, but out west did. And so the prediction is that these crossbills will probably head west and we may not see them. And of course, everybody loves to see snowy owls when they come down to Maine. We've had a couple of what are called eruptions over the last five years or so, where the food sources up in the Arctic have been very poor for snowy owls. And perhaps they also had a really good lots of juveniles. And so the populations work their way down here into Maine and south of Maine even. And people have had wonderful luck visiting and finding where these snowy owls are and seeing how the really great looks at them. Cold doesn't bother them. When we see them, it's all about whether there's where they can find food. Then we have several ducks that sometimes can be seen off the coast as well that typically nest further north, like the longtail duck, dove keys, and my favorite, the harlequin duck. So here's where they typically hang out during the summer north of us. And areas like this, far north, Greenland, Hudson Bay, Alaska. But we do have a regular visitation from harlequin ducks off the coast of Maine during the winter. So you may be able to see them if you're lucky. So the last thing I'm gonna talk about is how do we know where all these animals are going? How do we get information about them? And I'm sure most of you are familiar with the traditional bird banding tools that we've used, but bird banding requires you to catch the bird, put a band on it, and then re-catch that bird sometime later. And the recovery rate, especially for songbirds, is something like 3%. It's very, very low. So for the last couple of years, I've been working with a team of other scientists across New England to create a network of modus towers. And this is sort of a new migration tracking tool that I'm just gonna talk a little bit about because it's pretty exciting. The way it works is that you set up these towers with antenna on them. And then you do have to catch the birds initially. You catch the birds, you put a tiny little, what's called nanotag on the bird. These are so small that we finally can put these radio tags on passerons. In the past, it really hasn't been possible. Songbirds hasn't been possible to do that. So now you can put these little nanotags on things like Swainsons Thrush or red knots. And then when the birds fly, when they're migrating, north or south, if there are enough of these towers up with the antenna on them, they will, it'll register every time the bird goes by every tower. So we can actually track daily and hourly movements of these birds over time. So we're learning all kinds of great new information about where these birds are traveling and not just birds, monarch butterflies. These nanotags are so light that we can also put them on insects like the darned dragonflies or monarch butterflies. It's pretty remarkable. And last year in Maine, we put up six towers at a number of different places everywhere from down East Maine to Western Maine where you are to Southern Maine where I am. And they can be put up in a variety of ways, self-standing like this with solar powers or attached to a building, get our fields pond out of on center and hold them. And they're operating all the time, just registering data as the birds fly by. This year, we put up another six or seven. So we have a total of 14 now in Maine and across the new linear there will be 50 different towers. So this is a little informational sign that goes up at each tower that talks about what the equipment is and how it works. And if you are interested in this, you can go to this MODIS website and you can actually identify individual towers, figure out which species have passed that tower and when, and then you can create these maps that actually show, that illustrate where each different species is moving. So here's an example. The red is the bobbling, the yellow Swainsons thrush, green, rusty Blackbird. These are all different species that were tracked on, through our MODIS towers starting in Maine last year. And there should be many more sightings this year. I haven't updated the map yet. And then finally, for those of you who are interested in what's happening right now with migration, there is this wonderful site that Cornell Lab of Ornithology runs called Birdcast, where you can see in real time, using radar and other tools, you can see where the migration hotspots are and whether there's a lot happens. What's happening tonight? What's happening next week? This particular map is from October 6th and it's showing 756 million birds in flight. The biggest migratory activity was in the Midwest area there and then we've got, but we still have some going on here in the East as well. So with that, I will stop and I'm happy to entertain any questions. If you want more information, I encourage you to join Maine Audubon if you're not a member or you can contact me if you want more information about this or other of our wildlife work. And I look forward to hearing from you. I'm gonna stop my screen now. Can you hear me, Sally? I can. Okay. Questions for Sally? Question is, do you have any data on where the ruby-throated hummingbirds go? There probably is. I don't personally have it. I took a lot of this information from a variety of sources that Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a wonderful website called All About Birds. That has some of this, that's where all the maps came from that I showed. And if you go into that site, All About Birds, you can look up each individual species you're interested in and it'll give you information about the migratory activity for that particular species. Yes. I think that's an excellent question that many of us have pondered. The question is, does anyone understand what drives these species to migrate as far as they do, rather than just sort of following the seasons going to southern United States? Why do they go to South America? Is there any understanding of that? I think it's mostly, well, there's a number of things that play in there. When I talk to folks about our forest birds, I would say, now, why would they bother coming all the way up here to Maine? And there's four reasons I give. One, we have a lot of forest here. We have a lot of different types of forest with a tremendous amount of different habitat features within those forests. So there's a lot of room for each different species and many individuals of each species to nest and raise their young. Why would they come here to nest and raise their young? Because there's plenty of daylight and plenty of food. They feed primarily on caterpillars that they're feeding their young because they're like protein pills so the young can grow really fast. And they can search for that food from dawn until dusk. We have a lot longer days than down in the southern climes. And so it's worth it to them to come here for the habitat features and the food resources. And the same, and the reverse is true. They can't stay here during the winter because there's not enough food for them. And I don't know exactly why they would go all the way to South America versus Southern US, but I think it has to do with their habitat, the habitat quality and the resources that are available there. Other questions? Did you hear that? No, I can't hear any of the- He's asking about the decline in the birds which we've seen for several years. But in addition to habitat loss, what are some of the other chief drivers of the decreasing number? Yeah, there are many different factors that play into that. One is certainly direct habitat loss. But in addition to that, we know that birds face many different threats. So they have, during their migration, sometimes their wintering areas either have been lost or they have been degraded. And so they aren't able to fuel up in the way that they need to along their migratory pathway. Disturbance can be a big factor. I mentioned a little bit about how our shorebirds, when every time somebody walks by and makes them flush, fly away, that's wasting energy that they could be using to feed. And so the disturbance is a big factor. We also know that for many of our insect devours, insect eating birds, like swallows and swifts and that kind of thing, pretty certain that all of our dependence on pesticides has reduced the insect population to the point where they're just not enough food for them to be doing well. And they're also carrying these pesticide loads in some cases. There's been studies done, there was a study done up in Canada that was able to link a change in behavior of these birds relative to neonicotin that they were ingesting from pesticide use. A lot of the, for grassland birds, a lot of, and for monarch butterflies and things like that. The way that we farm today is really different from the way that we used to farm. So it used to be there were a lot of edges left around fields that were wildflowers could grow and the insects were there and the things like bobble inks and sparrows could still nest along in those areas. And that's just not happening anymore. But most areas are being plowed right to the edge of the fields. And so we've lost a lot of that habitat that used to be available. We also know that strikes with windows as when birds are migrating is a big factor. We've actually started a project right here in Portland over the last couple of years. We have people that go out early in the morning, 435 o'clock in the morning, during migratory season, looking for dead birds on the sidewalks and those buildings with lots of glass windows you see a lot of dead birds on the sidewalks. So it's a combination of factors. One thing that I like to really emphasize though is if we can provide good quality breeding habitat here in Maine for these birds, then we can help counter that decline and perhaps even help reverse it to some extent. And we have the ability to do that, particularly for our forest birds, to provide high quality habitat. So it's really important. It's kind of like Maine is the breeding bird factory for all of these songbirds that come back to breed here every year. And if they're not making more babies, then they're definitely going to keep declining despite all those other threats. Thank you. Any other questions? Bert? I mean, is the winter habitat deep? Yeah, Bert was asking about, we hear a lot about the degradation of the winter habitat of the monarch. Yes. Similar areas that are affecting the migrating birds populations as well. Absolutely. We know that many of our songbirds, particularly that breed down in Central and South America, I mean that over winter in Central and South America, are facing tremendous habitat loss issues there. And so if they don't have anywhere to spend the winter, that's a big problem. And if they can't find the food that they're used to finding or the places to hide from predators or to rest, it's a huge problem. Yes. Question is about the tiny chips that go on the monarchs. How small are those? What are the dimensions or weight? Is that what you mean? We're talking grams. I don't know exactly, but it's very tiny, tiny, tiny, less than smaller than your fingernail. Your little fingernail. Degrade over time or do they, do you know? They have batteries in them and the batteries last for a certain amount of time. The bigger the nanotag is, the longer the battery lasts for so far. Things like monarch butterflies, you have to use the tiniest size nanotags. And those will last for several months maybe, but for something like a rusty blackbird, they can last as long as two years. Wow. I had a question in that same, along the same thing. So these towers are now all up and down the East Coast? Not just the East Coast. What we've tried to do is create what we call fence lines across all of the New England and Northeastern states. So from Maine, we actually have two, kind of two fence lines. One that's further south and one that goes from down East up towards Saddleback area. And then those hook into lines of towers that are running across New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. And then there's a whole another, a couple of lines down through Massachusetts, Connecticut and down through Pennsylvania. So, and then we're working towards getting more along the South, Southern, South Eastern, proud of the state, plus even down into Central and South America. And once, so once we build out that network of towers, we'll be able to get even more powerful data than we have. Yeah. Been able to have in the past. In the West as well? Yeah, so this program was actually started in Canada by Birds Canada. The MODIS program is on their website. And you can see there are towers not just in the East, but also in across Canada and in many other countries around the world. So I think the technology is just gonna keep growing. And it's one of those things that's kind of a chicken and egg thing. You wanna have enough towers up so that it can record the birds that are moving through, but you also need to put tags on the birds in order to record them. So it's, there's some of both happening and I expect both areas to grow, more researchers that are using these nanotags and then more towers going up. Great. Yes. Nick. The question is about global warming and migration. And are they seeing patterns where some birds are going farther north? And in the converse of that, are some birds in fact not going as far south? I don't know about the not going as far south, but we definitely are seeing range expansions. I mean, just in the time that I've been working at Maine Audubon, we have birds that are showing up in Maine now that never used to show up in Maine, things like tufted tip mice. And we have gray foxes that are here that never used to be here. They've been, we've been able to, there's others folks who have documented movement I think it's something like, I'm not gonna get the numbers right, but many miles north on an annual basis, some of these ranges are expanding. We have Eastern bluebirds that are overwintering here. They never used to overwinter here. We have red-bellied woodpeckers that are showing up here that never used to be here. So yes, we are definitely seeing changes in ranges and in nesting breeding activity of these birds. I'm not as familiar with what's happening on the other end of the migratory pathway. Yes. Question is, are there organizations in Central and South America like Audubon that are doing the same sort of work with birds that we are doing here? Yes, there are. And I have not had the privilege of working with any of those organizations directly, but some other folks within the Audubon, the National Audubon Network are working with folks in Central and South America. And there are many other local conservation organizations that are putting in efforts to protect birds, to protect the habitat there, and to join this modus network. Scott Weidensall, who's been part of the modus work here in the Northeast, is sort of an expert on migration work, and he has said several times that he's been working directly with organizations in Central and South America to expand this modus network and work on also protecting the wintering habitat in those areas. So I know there are folks from National Audubon that are working with people in Central and South America and protecting the wintering habitat in addition to trying to figure out where they're migrating to. That's encouraging. Yeah, yes, in the back. So you're asking what can we here in Maine do besides just the fact that we have this wonderful habitat? Is that the question? Hang on, Sally. I'm trying to get the question straight. So she's asking what sorts of things we can do specifically to protect bird habitat. You said that we've got this huge mass of forest and that's wonderful and that's ours to cherish. What other things can we do? You've mentioned the farming issue, the hanging. Yep. In particular. Yeah, well, I love your question because I like to think that we both have a responsibility and an opportunity here in Maine to really help these birds. And definitely if you have farmland and you're interested in grassland birds, I would encourage you to contact the folks, either contact me or contact the folks at Egg Allies. You can find it right on the website, AG and then Allies. They're doing great work with farmers on trying to enhance habitat for birds. We also have a program called Forestry for Maine Birds, which it works directly with landowners and foresters and loggers on how to enhance their forest habitat to create better breeding conditions for our forest breeding birds, which I'm happy to talk to anybody about. And we have lots of resource materials that can help you look at how to manage your forest in a way that benefits birds and other wildlife, including fish, including brook top. And then for our shore birds, that's a bigger challenge. You know, these are actually, I would say one of the things I hope I've conveyed is how Maine is in a really unique position in terms of being able to provide great habitat for these birds, but we're also part of an international effort. And it takes more than just what we can do here in Maine, but nonetheless, shore birds, you know, it's a matter of helping other people understand how disturbing shore birds when they're feeding or resting in their mudflats is not great. Give them room, walk around them, walk away from them. Same thing for things like loons when, you know, let's make sure that you're not disturbing them when you're out on the water and give them space, give them space on their nest, give them space with their chicks, don't disturb them. And then when they are, and we also have a program called Lead Free, we distribute lead-free sinkers and jigs and we encourage people to fish with lead-free tackle because loons will ingest this lead from the bottom of the lake and they will get lead poisoning and often die within two weeks of that lead poisoning. So we have a whole suite of things that we can help you. If you wanna put up bird boxes, in some cases, that can help. If you want to take it, some people actually put up what they would call bluebird trails where they put a number of boxes in a row or not in a row, but on their property and they can take those. You can also work with your local land trust on what are they doing to protect habitat and enhance habitat for birds and other wildlife. So those are a few ideas. Yes. Yes. Oh, actually can I add one other thing? One other thing I would strongly encourage you to think about is to purchase, if you're a coffee drinker, purchase bird-friendly coffee. Shade grown bird-friendly coffee. One of the big losses of winter in habitat is from coffee plantations, which are often just monocultures. They've cut down the rainforest, replace them with monoculture coffee bushes, but there's a big movement to try to grow coffee under the shade of other trees so that it can still provide the habitat for birds and other wildlife by doing that. And then they're very successful and very, excuse me, financially viable as well, but you have to look for and ask for that. And that can make a big difference. Yes. How are the little tags attached? Is that what you're asking? Oh, tiny tags attached. They use little harnesses, almost like a backpack. And the little harnesses go around the wings so they're not glued on. And then eventually they will degrade and fall off. Other questions? Looks like that. It. Well, thank you very much. We have our flock of bobble inks that comes back every year as we are careful with our mowing and they're fun to have around. Haven't seen a Savannah sparrow yet, but we do have our bobble inks and the blue birds and other things. And so I think we're done and we can't thank you enough for a very interesting talk and we will all here in Farmington work hard on preserving our birds. Great. Thank you, Nancy, and thank you to the rest of the audience who I can't see, but it was nice to be able to spend the evening with you. Great. Big.