By Theresa Willingham — 8/22/2011

Hog Island

This past weekend, Audubon Hog Island Camp, on Muscongus Bay in Maine – one of the most wonderful, successful, and, to our family, personally enriching and warmly memorable, environmental education facilities in America – celebrated its 75th anniversary.

In  the summer of 2007, my middle daughter, then 17, was awarded an Audubon Society Scholarship to a Hog Island residential camp.  Always an outdoorsy child but only cautiously adventurous, Hog Island was her first – and only – “sleep away” camp.  For ten days, she would bunk with other high schoolers from around the country and learn about birds, and local ecology.

Maine woods

For those ten days, the rest of us journeyed around coastal Maine, touring lighthouses, geocaching in fragrant balsam forests, exploring Acadia National Park, and a variety of scenic and historical areas. We fell in love with Maine. Our daughter fell in love with birds. We all fell in love with Hog Island.

Our daughter came back confident, excited, and an avid birder. She started a blog – Earthbird: Diary of a Teenage Birder — which eventually became the diary of a college birder. She wrote an article for the Audubon Society about her experience at Hog Island: Summer Camp Salute , and wrote her college essay about how Hog Island set her on the path to both environmental and self-discovery.  She headed to college with fresh focus, new ideas, and a yen for travel that has since taken her to London, Wales and Ireland for a semester, and to Puerto Rico for service learning projects.

This summer, her final summer before she starts her senior year at Eckerd College, where she’s an Environmental Studies and Anthropology major, she interned at Shaver’s Creek , the nature center of Penn State. Among other things, she worked with the Raptor Center there, coming full circle on her journey from fledgling birder to bird of prey handler.  Midway through the summer, she journeyed to Tuscson, AZ to join 79 other students from around the nation as a Udall Scholar, which recognizes young leaders in environmental fields.

The College Birder

The Teenage Birder

As much as all of this is a tribute to my daughter’s own drive, curiosity and interest in the world around her, it is equally a tribute to the place that set her mind afire in first place. On Hog Island, my daughter walked in the footsteps of some of the nation’s leading environmentalists, scientists and naturalists, including Roger Tory Peterson, Rachel Carson, and Dr. Stephen Kress. Since 1936, campers have experienced the transformative beauty, abundant wildlife and deep serenity of Muscongus Bay under the studied guidance of teachers like Peterson and renowned birder Kenn Kaufman, who turned my daughter’s eyes heavenward.

Environmental education in the classroom is one thing.  Experiencing the living wonders of a place as rich in beauty and biodiversity as Hog Island, and rich, as well,  in the people who understand it and eagerly share its wonders with others, is something else entirely.

Author Scott Weidensaul said of Hog Island, “Hog Island takes hold of you. There are many beautiful places, but this one will change your life.“

Our daughter would probably agree.  I know we certainly do!  Happy Birthday, Hog Island!

Republished with permission

Landing on Egg Rock for Clean Up

Egg Rock is off limits during the nesting season. However, during the fall session of Maine Seabird Biology and Conservation on September 11-16, you can land on Egg Rock and help restore the habitat for puffins, Atlantic Terns and Roseate Terns. This session coincides with the peak of the fall landbird and hawk migration.

Learn about seabird restoration from the experts. Join Greg Butcher, Director of Bird Conservation with National Audubon, Steve Kress, Director of Seabird Restoration Program, and Scott Weidensaul, nature writer of numerous books and short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize, for a rare opportunity to actually set foot on it and see some of the birds still there.

An autumn sign on Hog Island

A few places remain for the session — let’s keep up our record of 100% participation for 2011 — so sign up today with Roads Scholar for Maine Seabird Conservation and Biology. You’ll have the added bonus of seeing the rainbow colors of Maine’s fall foliage begin.

In October, Birder’s World published a story about Hog Island by Pete Dunne. They have granted us permission to share the article as a downloadable PDF, so please enjoy!

• “Back to the source” by Pete Dunne (168 KB PDF)

Famed videographer Lang Elliott has produced a new 6-minute video about the ornithology and teen birding session at the Audubon Camp in Maine on Hog Island.

Elliott and co-videographer Martyn Stewart capture the spirit of the legendary camp which will celebrate its 75th anniversary next summer.

The video features well-known birders Kenn Kaufman, Scott Weidensaul, Greg Budney, Sara Morris and Steve Kress. Lang will join the field ornithology instructors for the 2011 Hog Island program.

Osprey with fish by Don Marsh

From Steve Kress

The legendary Audubon Camp in Maine on Hog Island offered its first session in 1936. Now, 75 years later, Project Puffin announces the beginning of registration for the Camp’s anniversary year.

The 2011 Hog Island season will begin with a service learning program in which participants will help census a Maine seabird colony and end with another service program in which participants will create habitat for terns on Eastern Egg Rock.

Hog Island service programs are co-sponsored by Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel). Participants in these programs learn about seabirds while helping Project Puffin to manage these Maine Important Bird Areas.

In addition to the service sessions, the 2011 Hog Island program will include the very popular birding programs ‘Joy of Birding’, ‘Field Ornithology’ and ‘Coastal Maine Birding for Teens.’ Two of Hog Islands most popular programs will also return this year with special sessions designed for teachers and Audubon Chapter leaders. Visiting the puffins at Eastern Egg Rock is a highlight of all sessions.

Accommodations at Hog Island are in authentic early-20th-century buildings at the edge of the sea. Our renowned chef, Janii Laberge, will again serve extraordinary meals in our historic farmhouse looking out onto Muscongus Bay.

“If your life is steeped in birds, then you owe it to yourself to visit the Source. If you have just discovered birds, there is an island where you can get a crash course in field birding that will link you to birding’s past and vault your skills into the future.”

Hog Island’s first instructors were birding greats Roger Tory Peterson and Allan Cruickshank. The 2011 instructors continue this tradition by including some of the country’s best known birders, such as Pete Dunne, Kenn Kaufman and Scott Wiedensaul.

A week on Hog Island is famous for top instruction, great food and an inspiring setting where people have fun learning together. Program Director Steve Kress predicts that like 2010, most of the sessions will quickly sell out with wait lists.

As instructor Pete Dunne wrote recently in Birder’s World, “If your life is steeped in birds, then you owe it to yourself to visit the Source. If you have just discovered birds, there is an island where you can get a crash course in field birding that will link you to birding’s past and vault your skills into the future.”

‘Word of mouth’ has always been the best way to engage new Audubon Campers,  so please forward this e-mail to any lists you have — including Facebook friends — to help spread the word that registrations are now open for our big anniversary year.

Reserve a place for yourself now for this milestone summer of 2011. Visit the Hog Island Ornithology site for more details:

• Registration/Pricing, Cancellation, and Contact Information
• Selected Field Trips (field trip descriptions)
• Daily Schedule Sample
• Hog Island Bird Checklist (PDF)
• Lodging and Buildings
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Hog Island Legacy and History

From Steve Kress, Director Audubon Seabird Restoration Program

The final Audubon Camp in Maine session for the 2010 season was titled ‘Maine Seabird Biology and Conservation’. This service learning program was a collaborative venture with Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel). It represents the strengths of combining the on the ground seabird management of Project Puffin with the power of 32 people — motivated to not only learn about seabird biology, but participate in direct conservation actions.

[flickr-gallery mode="photoset" photoset="72157624919932261" pagination=0]

The group assembled on Hog Island on Sunday, Sept. 19 for the five day program. This was the second Road Scholar program at Hog Island this summer. Like the late May-early June program which focused on censusing nesting seabirds, this program connected eager volunteers with service projects that required many helping hands.

Hog Island volunteers raise a sign for the Cruickshank Wildlife Sanctuary

Like other sessions this summer, this group represented every corner of the country — 16 states in total. Ages ranged from 52-75 and included a great diversity of semi and retired professionals. All actively participated in the program. In addition to the registered participants, eight members of FOHI (Friends of Hog Island) volunteered their time to assist in the kitchen and join in on the field projects.

The group was fortunate to have exceptionally good weather, even though mid September is typically one of Maine’s best weeks for outdoor activities. Flat calm seas prevailed for the first two days with temperatures in the 70’s — ideal for landing the entire group on Eastern Egg Rock. Once ashore the group divided into four teams that set about various projects that included:

• Cutting overgrown vegetation from the artificial puffin burrows that once housed Newfoundland puffin chicks and digging new entrances to adapt them for Leach’s storm-petrel nesting. Soon fifty burrows were restored and ready for storm-petrels to nest next summer.
• Pulling abandoned lobster traps from seabird nesting habitat. Past storms had tossed the traps onto the island creating danger for nesting seabirds. Two black guillemots and a laughing gull were found entangled in the traps, tragic reminders about the issue of entanglement. By the end of the 2^nd day, more than 50 lobster traps were pulled out of the nesting habitat and several hundred abandoned buoys and other plastics were collected.
• Removing vegetation from the Allan D. Cruickshank sanctuary sign, repainting the letters and re-installing it with new posts.
• Clearing vegetation from overgrown Common and Roseate Tern habitat and installing outdoor carpet mats to serve as weed barriers, thus creating new habitat for these threatened seabirds. About 200 square meters of new habitat resulted.

The 32 participants donated more than 200 hours of work to help the Egg Rock seabirds. The equipment to cut the vegetation and purchase the weed barrier was provided by a grant from NAWCA (North American Wetland Conservation Act) administered by the U.S. Fish and wildlife Service and LL Bean.

When advance winds from Hurricane Igor made landings unsuitable at Egg Rock for the remainder of the week, the group happily turned their service inclinations to entering seabird data on Project Puffin computers, cutting invasive barberry shrubs and scraping and painting window trim on Hog Island buildings! In addition to the service projects, the group found time to visit many local birding hotspots and hear lectures on backyard landscaping for birds from Stephen Kress and bird migration from Scott Wiedensaul.