BANGOR DAILY NEWS • July 17, 2021
Birds have scolded me a great deal lately. Often, I didn’t deserve it. It’s gotten so that I can tell which bird is cussing me out just by the sound. I’ve been walking miles of back roads over the last seven weeks as a volunteer for the Maine Bird Atlas project. This has led me close to a lot of nesting birds, resulting in a spate of avian tongue-lashings. As you can imagine, birds would like to keep their baby-making private. If you get too close to the nest, you’re apt to get scolded. But the type of scolding varies through the season. Now that I’ve had four years of practice, I can actually tell what nesting stage the birds are in. You can, too. ~ Bob Duchesne