Birds of Maine

Maine is mostly forest, with a long folded coast of granite and spruce. The Maine Bird Records Committee lists 470 species as of December 2022, 141 of them rare or accidental, and a lot of that list is seabirds: eiders, guillemots, puffins and the gulls that follow every lobster boat home. Inland it is spruce, fir, birch and lakes, which means thrushes, warblers and loons.

In town it is a northern backyard. Crow, chickadee, goldfinch, Song Sparrow and jay lead the album, and the cardinal, which leads almost everywhere south of here, is only ninth.

The Maine album

These are the 100 birds people report most often in Maine, ranked by how frequently they turn up. The common and uncommon ones are shown; the rare and legendary cards stay face down until you catch them in the game.

Backyard birds you will hear first

The American Crow is the most reported bird in Maine, cawing from the pines at first light and gathering in big noisy roosts in winter. The Black-capped Chickadee is second and the first bird most Mainers learn, because it comes to the feeder all winter. The goldfinch bounces overhead calling po-ta-to-chip, and the Song Sparrow starts its three-note opener from the lilac in March, when there is still snow on the ground.

The Blue Jay screams from the oaks, the Downy Woodpecker whinnies, the nuthatch honks from the trunk, and in the coastal towns the Herring Gull is a yard bird too, bugling from the chimney and dropping mussels on the driveway. The robin carols before dawn from April into July.

The regions, by ear

The rocky coast

Granite, spruce and tide. Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island has recorded 338 species. Warblers sing in the spruce in May and June, eiders and guillemots croon and whistle off the ocean trails in summer, Peregrine Falcons scream from the cliffs, and in fall hawk watchers count the raptors passing Cadillac Mountain. The Common Loon wails from Jordan Pond and Eagle Lake on summer nights.

The North Woods

Spruce, fir and birch around the lakes. This is where the Hermit Thrush sings its slow, rising flute phrases at dusk, the White-throated Sparrow whistles Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody from every clearing, Ruffed Grouse drum like a distant engine starting in April, and the loons call across the water after dark.

Down East

The far northeastern coast, cooler and wilder. Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, nearly 30,000 acres of hills, ledges, bogs and lakes with more than 225 bird species, is the country's main study ground for the American Woodcock, which Mainers call the timberdoodle. On April evenings the males give a nasal peent from the wet clearings and then spiral up into the dusk with twittering wings. On the refuge's shoreline the tide rises and falls as much as 24 feet twice a day.

The southern beaches and marshes

Between Kittery and Cape Elizabeth the coast softens into sand and salt marsh, and Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge protects pieces of it along 50 miles. Saltmarsh Sparrows hiss from the cordgrass and Piping Plovers pipe from the beaches in summer.

The islands

Offshore, Atlantic Puffins were down to two Maine islands in 1973. Project Puffin brought them back to Eastern Egg Rock in Muscongus Bay, where the first transplanted birds returned to breed in 1977 and 188 pairs nested in 2019.

Best months to listen

Late May through June is the peak, later than the rest of the East. The warblers arrive in the last week of May, the thrushes and White-throated Sparrows are on territory, and the loons are back on the lakes. April is woodcock month at dusk. September and October bring the hawks over Cadillac, and the coast stays busy with sea ducks all winter. In the cold months the dooryard is chickadee, nuthatch, jay and crow.

Places worth the drive

• Acadia National Park, Mount Desert Island: 338 species, warblers in June, peregrines on the cliffs, hawks over Cadillac in fall, loons on Jordan Pond.
• Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, Down East: woodcock displays in April, boreal woods, 225 species.
• Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, the southern coast: salt marsh, Saltmarsh Sparrows and Piping Plovers.
• Eastern Egg Rock, by boat from the Pemaquid area: puffins and terns in early summer.

None of them is required. A dooryard with a feeder, a lilac and a spruce gives you the first 25 cards of the Warble album by June.

Listen before you go

Three of the common Maine birds, so the first songs you hear outside already ring a bell.

Canada Goose song

0:12

Recording by Chase Harris, CC0, via iNaturalist.

Mallard song

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Recording by Fionn Ó Marcaigh, CC BY 4.0, via iNaturalist.

Rock Pigeon song

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Recording by Richard Littauer, CC BY 4.0, via iNaturalist.

Questions people ask

Nearby albums

Album data: public bird observations aggregated through GBIF, ranked by report frequency in Maine. Updated September 30, 2026.