Hit the Maine Birding Trail

If your favorite tweets come from feathered creatures, the Maine Birding Trail is for you.

Along with this spring’s official launch of the online trail, there’s a just-published companion guidebook, Maine Birding Trail (Down East Books, 2009) by Bob Duchesne, a Maine state representative, avid birder, and Maine Audubon guide who founded and has worked on the trail website since 2003. Duchesne says the project will continually change as birding sites are upgraded or protected according to the need for habitat protection. It’s his labor of love, developed in collaboration with Maine state government, Maine Audubon, and local birders.

The book identifies more than 260 accessible sites, dozens of other locations that are not part of the official trail and additional bird-watching venues in nearby Campobello and Grand Manan islands in Canada.

The book is not a guide to birds. In fact, there are no photos, no flight pattern charts or any of the other usual birding tools. It’s a travel guide to places throughout Maine from the southern beaches to Aroostook County, identifying which species you’re likely to see where. Chapters correspond to Maine’s official tourism regions rather than habitat zones.

In addition to driving directions and local maps, Duchesne gives visitors a heads-up on terrain. In Washington County, a Down East locale of undeveloped lakes where he says the tiny village of Grand Lake Stream has been the center of a robust hunting and fishing tradition since the 19th century, traditional sporting camps and lodges are marvelous places. Nearby, “the Little Mayberry Cove Trail begins at the outlet dam and follows the shoreline for 2 ½ miles through mature hemlock forest. Black-throated Blue Warblers, Scarlet Tanagers, and Eastern Wood-Peewees are common among the many songbirds found along the trail.” The Pocumcus Lake Trail is good for Ruffed Grouse and “judging by the abundance of moose droppings, it’s also a pretty good corridor for wildlife in the thick woods.”

Posted by Janet Mendelsohn, Globe correspondent