FARMINGTON — Western Maine Audubon plans next month to host a free live talk, “Great Blue Herons in Maine,” presented by Danielle D’Auria of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

The talk will begin at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 8, in the University of Maine Farmington’s Thomas Auditorium, 173 High St.

Since 2016, the department has deployed lightweight GPS tracking devices on Great Blue Herons to follow their movements during nesting, migration and wintering. This technology has revealed impressive migrations sometimes over long stretches of open ocean and for over 60 hours non-stop to Florida, the Bahamas, Cuba and Haiti, according to a news release from Will Jones with Western Maine Audubon, based in Falmouth.

Those who attend can hear about these birds, how more than 100 volunteers have been monitoring their colonies for the past 14 years, and how students are integral to tracking their movements within and beyond state lines.

D’Auria is the department’s expert on secretive marsh birds, colonial wading birds, common loons and black terns. Her work focuses on understanding statewide populations of these species as well as land management issues affecting the wetland habitats they depend on.

Over the past 14 years she has devoted a great deal of effort to heron surveys and research, including coordination of a volunteer monitoring program, the Heron Observation Network of Maine, and has used GPS transmitters to track Great Blue Herons during breeding, migration and wintering.

For more information, contact Jones at 207-491-2443 or twilljo@gmail.com.

 

 

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