Conservation Cameraderie

by Douglas Rooks

June 15, 2010

Topics: Birding | Trips | People Profiles

 

Whether you're a novice or a wildlife expert, Maine Audubon's trips and activities are a great way to meet new people and learn new things about Maine.

 

Maine Audubon's trips and activities connect hundreds of people with nature every month, but they are also a powerful way for the organization to engage new stewards for Maine's environment. Many dedicated members and volunteers got their start on bird walks with naturalist Eric Hynes, right on the grounds of Gilsland Farm in Falmouth.

Turner Ragsdale, for instance, showed up at a weekly birdwalk one morning and has been regularly making the two-hour trip from his home in Newry ever since. Since moving from Boston two years ago, he's been able to expand his collection of bird carvings while also learning "more than I ever knew was possible" about birds in Maine.

The co-owner of Camp Vega on Echo Lake in Fayette, Ragsdale has also taken to bird conservation in a big way through his involvement with Maine Audubon. He's built nesting platforms for ospreys and loons, and erected bluebird boxes "just because I'd never seen one before." He's been gratified by successful nestings on his 300-acre camp property.

Rita Moore brought some old binoculars to her first bird walk at Gilsland Farm. "I think they were my grandfather's. They hardly magnified at all."

Eric Hynes showed her how to find a reasonably priced pair. "I've been hooked" ever since, she said. Like other new members, she speaks of Hynes' "limitless knowledge and patience."

"He answers any question, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. He makes it fun," says Moore.

A school administrator for 35 years, Moore sought out guided walks "because I've always heard birds I couldn't identify."
She's since been on many birding trips, with Monhegan, Matinicus and Plum Island among her favorites.

"You meet a lot of interesting people" on walks, she said. Birding is almost "a universal language."

Moore frequently brings her friend and former coworker Ann Adjutant, who taught in the Portland schools and developed science curricula before retirement. An enthusiastic traveler, Adjutant has seen the resplendent quetzal in Costa Rica, a favorite. But she'd never seen a harlequin duck, "even though I'd lived in Maine all my life," until a recent Maine Audubon trip.

For Adjutant, birds are not only marvelous to see, but an indicator of environmental health: "I don't think we will exist without them."

Hynes says he learns along with participants. "We might have someone who knows lots about wildflowers, or insects, or trees. It all adds to the experience, seeing how everything fits together."

His own interest in wildlife came from a familiar Maine source. At summer camp at the age of 10, he heard a loon in the pre-dawn hours and could hardly wait for a counselor to awaken and tell him what it was.

This "singular moment" led to a lifelong interest, through study at the University of Vermont, and 12 years as a peripatetic naturalist, guiding trips in Alaska, studying raptors in Idaho, and surveying windpower sites in Maine.

For him, it's the diversity of birds - 10,000 species worldwide - their beauty, and the mysteries of flight that keep people focused. "There's almost literally no place you can't see birds, on every day of the year. It's a continual challenge, because nobody knows it all."