collecting data and keeping watch over our North American and provides a spectacular array of breeding birds that arrive
birds. He spent some time as the manager of a salmon in the spring and stay throughout the summer. Aroostook
farm in Eastport; and with his wife, Laurie, and their two is at the northernmost reach of the breeding range for many
children, Sam and Mary Jo, moved to Woodland in 1992, species of migratory birds, and the mix of woodlands, open
where he now works for the
fields, farmland and wetlands
DEP in Presque Isle. Laurie is
provides an attractive habitat.
a Special Education teacher in
Because it is at the end of
School Union 122.
the line and the birds stay
In Woodland, the
to breed, they remain in
family bought a home directly
Aroostook for a longer period
across the road from the
of time. A bird watcher in
Woodland Bog, a protected
the Connecticut hills may
area owned by The Nature
thrill to see a Yellow-bellied
Conservancy. Bill became the
Flycatcher or a Bay-breasted
director of the bird banding
Warbler, but these birds won’t
program, and with Rich
be there for long; they are
Hoppe of the Maine Dept. of
just on a stopover on the way
Inland Fisheries and Wildlife,
to Aroostook! The region is
monitored the breeding birds
also at the southernmost tip
Bohemian Waxwing
of the area for five years. Each
of a large connected tract of
year of the study, migrant species
northern boreal forest, home to
such as warblers, vireos, and
many birds that are never seen
thrushes would fly into the bog
anywhere else in the US, such
and become caught in special nets
as Boreal Chickadees, Northern
made of a fine mesh. When the
Hawk Owls and Gray Jays. The
children were little, they helped
plump little Arctic Snow Buntings
Bill remove the captive birds from
that flock along County roads in
the nets, carefully holding them on
the winter have come down from
their backs with fingers wrapped
the north to spend a few months
gently around their upturned
in a “warmer”, more hospitable
breasts, while Bill banded the tiny
c