Western Maine Audubon invites the general public to a free live talk titled, “Great Blue Herons in Maine,” presented by Danielle D’Auria of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. The talk will be held on Wednesday, March 8th from 7:00-8:30 pm in UMF’s Thomas Auditorium at 173 High Street, Farmington.

Did you ever wonder where Maine’s Great Blue Herons go in winter, and what path they travel to get there? Since 2016, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife 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! Hear about these majestic birds, how over 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.

Presenter, Danielle D’Auria, is Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’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 called the “Heron Observation Network of Maine” and has used GPS transmitters to track great blue herons during breeding, migration, and wintering.