A puffin is pictured in this shot by Nobleboro birder and photographer Mael Glon. Puffins are one of the more iconic bird species of the Midcoast area, said Glon; the species was nearly eliminated from the Maine coast by hunting in the 1800s, but the birds were restored to some islands by Audubon ornithologist Stephen Kress starting in the 1970s. Today, boats leave from New Harbor to visit an active puffin colony on Eastern Egg Rock. (Photo courtesy Mael Glon)
Though the darkest days of Maine winter may seem bleak and gray, those who know where to look find the world still teeming with colorful, feathered animal life.
Birder Maël Glon, of Nobleboro, knows where to look better than most. Before the first month of 2025 was over, Glon spotted 100 different bird species within the bounds of Lincoln County. The achievement was a personal goal, and, he said, a testament to Lincoln County’s biodiversity and birding community.
“I didn’t think it was realistic,” he said, “but then it became more and more like, OK, I’ve made it this far. What’s 15 more birds? 10 more birds? And then I did it.”
Glon believes his methodical identification of 100 different bird species in January may be a Lincoln County first.
“As far as I can tell, myself and others, we’ve tried – but we haven’t tried as crazy as I went this January,” he said.
A full-time biologist with a bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree in biological sciences, Glon has been fascinated by animals since his childhood. He studies a range of creatures in his work, but it is birds, he said, that have captured his attention – and his free time – ever since he taught a birding class as a graduate student.
“It just kind of went from there, and became this sort of runaway train,” he said.
Since moving to Nobleboro in 2022, Glon has documented and photographed the birds he has spotted within Lincoln County. He has become deeply involved in the birding community, serving as a board member for Mid-Coast Audubon and making connections with other bird enthusiasts throughout the region.
The idea of a 100-bird threshold exists because bird-watchers, or birders, “are really into their lists,” Glon said. It’s common for those in the hobby to maintain a “life list” of all the different bird species they have seen. Many also choose to create smaller lists, breaking down their birding efforts geographically – such as Glon’s Lincoln County boundary – or temporally, such as year-to-year or month-to-month.
The list-keeping tradition makes some birders antsy at the start of the new year, leading to the 100-bird goal, Glon said.
“The idea of getting 100 birds in January, I think it’s kind of a compulsion that birders have,” he said. “You get to the end of the year, and you’re like, wow, I’ve seen so many birds – and then you wake up the next day, in January, like, wow, I’ve seen zero birds. Other places I’ve lived, it’s almost been an informal tradition to try to see 100 birds in January to make you feel better.”
At first, Glon said, he didn’t think it would be feasible to carry out the tradition in Lincoln County. But on Christmas, while participating in the Audubon’s Christmas bird count tradition in which birders seek out as many bird species as they can on Christmas Day, he saw some encouraging signs.
“I started noticing that there were a lot of birds hanging around that shouldn’t be here,” Glon said.
According to Glon, every year, a couple birds that normally head south for the winter end up sticking around. Milder winters may contribute to this, Glon said, or the birds may choose to stick around after discovering a good source of food that they’re unwilling to part with, such as a well-stocked birdfeeder. Although a few such anomalies are expected, the number of late migrators Glon observed Christmas 2024 seemed especially high.
“This year, it was really unusual,” he said.
This planted the seed for Glon’s hope that spotting 100 birds might just be possible this January.
“I get motivated by fun little challenges like that,” he said.
As the month wore on and Glon’s bird total rose, he began to believe he might realize his goal.
For Glon, who works full time, the effort involved going birding at every opportunity. He said that “sheer effort” and knowing birds well – including the ability to recognize calls, allowing him to bird “by ear” – contributed to his success.
Most of all, though, Glon said he achieved his goal thanks to support and encouragement from Lincoln County’s dynamic birding community.
“At least 10 of these 100 birds, it was somebody I know or who I’ve met on (a Maine Audubon) field trip who said, hey, I’ve got this bird at my feeder if you want to see it,” he said.
Some of Glon’s more memorable bird species were spotted with clues and aid from friends.
Dave and Betsy Andrews, of South Bristol, served Glon coffee in their kitchen while he waited for a ruby-crowned kinglet and Baltimore oriole, two species unusual for a Maine winter that the couple had spotted at their feeder.
At dinner with other friends, when Glon shared he was hoping to see a ruffed grouse, a tip led him to a parcel of land where he was told to expect “the friendliest grouse you will ever see.”
That warning, Glon said, proved warranted.
“I barely got out of my car, and this bird is just, like, flying toward me,” he said. “It would not leave me alone.”
Glon had to run away from the friendly fowl to capture its image clearly, yielding a shot of the small game bird charging toward him, sending fresh-fallen snow flying in its wake.
Glon tracked his finds on the app eBird, which allowed others to follow along on his progress. As the month went on, more local birders started to take notice of Glon’s efforts, encourage him, and offer tips on where to find more species, he said.
The supportive and diverse community surrounding the hobby is a big part of what Glon said he loves about birding.
“I think a lot of the passion that’s kind of driving a lot of this is … the community and the personal stuff and the volunteering, it’s just a really fulfilling part of my life,” he said.
Glon, who is originally from France and studied in various regions of the United States before he and his wife, a fellow scientist, moved to Nobleboro in 2022, added that birding had connected him with many friends as a newcomer to the area.
“There’s a whole community of birders,” he said. “Especially in midcoast Maine and even more specifically in Lincoln County, there’s a little subgroup of people who bird.”
The hobby is accessible, Glon said, requiring very little in the way of equipment – and this leads to a diverse crowd of bird enthusiasts across Lincoln County. He often meets other birders through the free birding field trips he organizes through Mid-Coast Audubon.
Nobleboro birder and biologist Mael Glon in summer 2024 while conducting seabird surveys. A love of birds and the Lincoln County birding community motivated Glon to seek out 100 different bird species this January, a feat he accomplished on Jan. 25. Birding is a really fulfilling part of my life, he said. (Photo courtesy Alex DeCiccio)
“The friends I’m making, they’re not all people my age. They’re not all people who do what I do,” he said. “It’s people who, without birding, maybe we wouldn’t have been friends – and it’s just a really good group of people, and we all have that common passion.”
Just as Glon’s birding community helped him reach his goal, he spread the joy of his discoveries among his birding friends along the way. When Glon encountered birds 99 and 100 – which he found at Pemaquid Point on Saturday, Jan. 25 – he made sure to share the news with his community.
Bird number 99, a king eider duck, took Glon by surprise when he spotted it bobbing on the waves that day – he had made a list of birds he would like to see but didn’t expect to find, with the King Eider among them.
“I was like, ‘Wow, this is exciting, that’s bird number 99,’” Glon said.
Then, while he was still watching the waves, he made his 100th sighting: a dovekie, a small seabird and an evolutionary cousin of puffins, typically seen far out at sea. Dovekies are one of Glon’s favorite birds.
At first, he didn’t believe his eyes.
“This tiny little dovekie – they dive for a long time, and then they bob back up. I’m like, did I just see that?” Glon said.
He quickly shared the news with his birder friends.
“I knew people would want to see those, so immediately I was texting people, like, ‘Come see this stuff.’ It’s really exciting. So you know, what comes around goes around.”
Glon said the exercise goes to show just how diverse the community of birds is in Lincoln County, where a wide variety of habitats exist in a relatively small geographic area. It also, he said, is a good reminder that a biodiverse ecosystem is thriving outside our doors even in the darkest days of winter.
“I’m really happy about it,” he said, “because I set out to do something fun … I think part of why it’s been hard in the past to get this many birds is maybe because people were assuming they couldn’t. Sometimes you step outside and it’s just white and gray, and it’s like there’s nothing there, but you just have to go looking.”
Glon leads free field trips for birders of all levels through Mid-Coast Audubon. For more information, go to midcoast.maineaudubon.org.
To see more of Glon’s photography and learn about his work, go to maelglon.com.
