Allison Wells

Contributor at Boothbay Register

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Articles

Top Four Bird Signs of Spring

4 weeks ago | nrcm.org | Allison Wells

We could be wrong, but our sense is that most of us who live in Maine—even those of us who love winter sports and activities—look forward to the return of spring. Maybe it’s in our blood, maybe it’s just the air we breathe as the world warms around us, but spring seems to rejuvenate that feeling of connection to the earth and the rhythms of nature. If you’re like us, we can feel the physical response to more daylight and the (intermittently) warmer temperatures.
Mystery of a Not-So-Common Gull

1 month ago | nrcm.org | Allison Wells

Who doesn’t love a good mystery? Perhaps it comes as no surprise, given the nature of birding, that birders do! And a very diligent birder among us just solved a real whopper. In October 2024, birders spotted a Common Gull at the golf course at the Samoset Resort in Rockland. Now, Common Gulls are common in some places, but here in Maine, they are exceptionally rare, hardly found at all on this side of the Atlantic. The species breeds across Europe and Asia.
“Duck”-ing Maine’s Winter

2 months ago | nrcm.org | Allison Wells

Being birders, the two of us tend to incentivize chores and errands by working in a little birding when and where it makes sense. In winter, one of our favorite places to – can we say it? – “duck” in on is Gardiner Waterfront Park. Since we live in Gardiner, it’s conveniently located to any place we need to go to.
Tundra Swan Makes Rare Visit to Maine

Nov 25, 2024 | nrcm.org | Allison Wells

For the last two weeks, Maine has been graced by one of the most graceful birds: a swan—in this case, a Tundra Swan. Tundra Swans nest in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Canada across to Alaska (there is also a Eurasian subspecies often referred to as Bewick’s swan). Birds nesting from the northern crown of Alaska eastward across northern Canada winter along the Atlantic Coast, usually from New York to the Carolinas.
Quietly Working to Save the World

Oct 31, 2024 | nrcm.org | Allison Wells

Saving the world would seem like something to announce from the rooftops. Doesn’t always work that way. Nestled in the green valley between two mountain chains in southern Colombia lies the city of Cali, an incredibly busy place this week. Cali is hosting a meeting of many of the world’s nations that are collectively making decisions on how to address the precarious drop in abundance and diversity of life on planet earth. Colombia is a fitting place to discuss biodiversity.
Good Shorebirding Luck Continues

Sep 30, 2024 | nrcm.org | Allison Wells

A few weeks ago, while in the area, we took the opportunity to check out the birding at Wharton Point in Brunswick. We pulled into the little parking area that overlooks Maquoit Bay and quickly noticed the tide was just off high tide—perfect for shorebirding, as they would all be feeding in the constrained area between the water’s edge and the land. A few weeks later, we were amazed that our great birding luck at Wharton Point continued.
Weird Bugs and Vagrant Birds

Jul 30, 2024 | nrcm.org | Allison Wells

We’d been hearing about a pretty cool bird lately that appeared in the unlikely town of Dayton, Maine. The bird, a Tropical Kingbird, which has very few records for Maine, is both beautiful and intriguing, and so we wrote about it in our weekly column in the Boothbay Register (you can read that particular column here). This past weekend, we found ourselves making the trek to see this rare visitor from the tropics.
Drawn to the Marshes by a Force Unknown

Jun 27, 2024 | nrcm.org | Allison Wells

Was it an unconscious reaction to the excessive heat? Were we mesmerized by the memory of the “tick-it, tick-it” calls of rails we’ve heard in years past? Whatever it was drew us recently to two marshy lakes to look for particularly interesting birds. These two marshy areas happen to be local birding hotspots for us and are places we’ve been birding at for more than 40 years! But we hadn’t been lately, at least not to one of them.
A Great New Place to Bird

May 30, 2024 | nrcm.org | Allison Wells

If you’re like us, you like to combine your birding with discovering a new, spectacular place. A few weekends ago, we achieved that goal when we led a birding outing for members of the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) to the Perham Stream Birding Trail, located in Madrid, Maine. Madrid, in case you’re a little rusty on your Maine geography, is about a 40-minute drive north of Farmington.
Robins in Every Yard

Mar 26, 2024 | nrcm.org | Allison Wells

Before the big spring snow, on a recent morning walk around our neighborhood with our dog, Loki, spring seemed to have arrived overnight. “Pip-pip-pip”—the calls of American Robins seemed to sound from every yard. The lawns were just starting to regain some green among winter’s leftover brown matted grass but the robins didn’t care. They were standing here and there and everywhere, their famously red breasts puffed out as if they felt proud to be declaring their residency.