Down East Spring Birding Festival

10/04/2025

We've got doughnuts from ! And apples on display from ! Plus free/by donation coffee and tea. Hanging out until 5pm today (Saturday 10/4), 9a-1pm tomorrow (Sunday 10/5). Come on over!🍩🍏

07/10/2025

Migration Birding Walk August 15. Details and registration at: https://periwinkle.cobscookinstitute.org/event/8-15-2025-migration-birding-walk. Photo by Chris Bartlett

05/26/2025

05/23/2025

We're learning how to bird by ear with Bob Duchesne at the Downeast Spring Birding Festival today!🦉

05/02/2025

Register now at: https://cobscookinstitute.org/birdfest! Boat trip seats are going fast! Friday drive through Edmunds Moosehorn, hike Morong Cove; Saturday drive through Baring Moosehorn, paddle Dennys Bay, hear about Habitat Management and Wildlife Monitoring, paint Least Tern Decoys; Sunday drive through blueberry barrens; and MORE!

04/16/2025

We're looking for the next generation of bird conservationists to secure the future of purple martins in Maine.

03/12/2025

Seats are still available on the Machias Seal Island boat trips - May 23, 24, & 25, 2025. These trips are some of the only ones offered to the island and offer a rare and unique up-close experience with puffins. Register here: https://cobscookinstitute.org/birdfest (Photos by Colin Brown, ).

02/26/2025

Register for the 2025 Downeast Spring Birding Festival!

A unique birding experience during spring migration and the breeding season with four days of guided hikes, boat tours, and presentations, all led by local guides with local knowledge.

05/01/2024

Piping Plovers are back on Maine's southern beaches and we need your help to share the shore with these endangered species while they build nests and raise young.
Piping Plovers are on the Maine Endangered Species Act (ESA) list so they are protected in Maine. (Their federal status is Threatened). Dogs present one of the biggest threats to these tiny birds!
> Please look for signs on the beaches to see if and when dogs are allowed. If dogs are allowed, please leash your dog.
> Plovers perceive dogs as predators and will leave their eggs unattended, making them vulnerable to other predators.
> Maine ESA status means you are not allowed to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect endangered species. That includes letting your dog chase a plover!
> Stake and twine fencing alerts you: birds may be nesting here!
> Plovers use the entire beach. They nest in soft sand on the upper beach but feed all the way down to the water's edge so they can be anywhere on the beach.
Please share the shore--and these facts--with all your beachgoing friends. Thanks!

05/01/2024

Roughly 100 pairs of the small shorebirds have been counted so far this year, and volunteers are starting work to protect the nests.

05/01/2024

Downeast Migration Birding Festival Registration opens today!