Louise Barteau is a field botanist, artist, and educator who has been watching birds since her first hike in Maine forty years ago. In recent years she has been working on botanical inventory and habitat restoration for birds and for butterflies.
Chris Bartlett
Chris Bartlett has served as the Marine Extension Associate for Eastern Maine of University of Maine’s Sea Grant since 1995. He works closely with coastal organizations, researchers, and resource managers on issues pertaining to commercial fishing and finfish aquaculture. Chris coordinates training and workshops, provides technical field assistance, and offers organizational support for groups engaged in commercial fisheries and aquaculture management. His interests also include collaborating with regional school groups to engage students in marine research and monitoring programs.
Mike Boardman
North Yarmouth, Maine based artist and Maine Master Naturalist Michael Boardman uses field sketching as a way to inform and connect with his wildlife subjects. He’s been fortunate to be accepted for numerous artist residencies in Maine and Alaska, including Acadia, Glacier Bay and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where he explores the connection between conservation science and art.
Colin Brown
Colin Brown is the Executive Director at Downeast Coastal Conservancy. He has a passion for connecting children and adults to the outdoors and has worked as an environmental educator and naturalist in many parts of New England. Colin has a BA in Sociology from the University of Connecticut and in his spare time enjoys hiking, camping, kayaking, birding, gardening, playing music, and spending time with his family.
Susan Cline
Susan Cline has lived on Campobello Island all her life. Since a young child, she has been curious about the natural world around her. Since 2006 Susan has been a summer employee at Herring Cove Provincial Park, enabling her to continue expanding her knowledge of the flora and fauna of the Island. Since 2012 she has particularly focused on identifying birds and learning their songs and behavior.
Pete Colman
Pete Colman is the Natural Areas Supervisor at Roosevelt Campobello International Park, working to maintain grounds of the park and steward principles of sustainability and ecological protection.
Becca Cusick
Becca Cusick is a naturalist and the term biological technician for Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge, where she assists refuge staff with the execution of various inventory, monitoring, and habitat management projects across the complex. Becca started her interest in birding through participation in the Rhode Island Nature Conservancy’s annual BioBlitz as a teenager, which contributed to the completion of her degree in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Maine. Since then, Becca has professionally and recreationally assisted with various facets of bird monitoring, from Christmas Bird Counts across New England to wild turkey trapping in Nebraska. This is her first year officially guiding for the festival, but she is looking forward to meeting, teaching, and learning from fellow birders visiting the Downeast Region this spring.
Bob Duchesne
Bob Duchesne became interested in birds in the first grade. Interest grew to passion, and today Bob is a chapter board member and frequent field trip leader for Maine Audubon. He spearheaded creation of the Maine Birding Trail, which launched in 2009, and is the author of Maine Birding Trail: The Official Guide to More than 260 Accessible Sites. Currently, Bob writes weekly birding columns in the Bangor Daily News and produces YouTube videos about birding in Maine and beyond.
Sandi McRae Duchesne
Sandi McRae Duchesne is an avid birder - and coastal Washington County is her favorite place to go birding in late May! She has guided for the Down East Spring Birding Festival almost every year since its inception in 2004. In her 30+ years as a board member and past President of the Penobscot Valley Chapter of Maine Audubon, Sandi has also developed and led numerous single-day, weekend, and week-long birding trips in Maine, eastern Canada, NH, and south Florida. She is a retired civil engineer and Navy officer, and currently serves on the Maine Audubon Board of Trustees.
Woody Gillies
Woody Gillies has had an interest in birds since his mother introduced him to backyard birding at an early age. When he was in junior high, he tagged along with his older brother who was taking a field ornithology course in college. Woody is a retired Professor Emeritus from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY where he taught chemistry for thirty-five years. He was a member of the Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club and of Mass Audubon, and past president of Fundy Audubon, a local chapter of Maine Audubon. Woody has birded in the Canadian Maritimes, Central America, Australia, and Europe. As a Downeast regional coordinator for the 2018-2022 Maine Bird Atlas and Winter Bird Survey, he has spent many hours birding lesser-known areas of Washington County. Woody has been interested in nature photography most of his adult life and has photographed birds wherever his travels take him.
Fred and Linda Gralenski
Fred and Linda Gralenski left their secure jobs and their home in the Boston area (Fred was a project engineer for Raytheon Missile Systems and Linda was a medical secretary at Mass General Hospital) and attained their dream in 1988 by building a log home on the shore of Cobscook Bay on land that they could almost afford. They had been involved with nature even before they got here with MA and NH Audubon societies, and they continue; with birds, amphibians, reptiles, and Lepidoptera being their favorites. Mammal study, botany, photography, and other entomology are not far behind. In her spare time Linda is heavily involved with hospice and the Board of Directors of the Calais Regional Hospital, and along with Fred, puts in many hours a week at the Pembroke Library. Fred is president of the Pembroke Library and also writes the “Quoddy Nature Notes” column for the Quoddy Tides newspaper.
Captain Butch Harris
Born and raised in Eastport, Captain Butch Harris has been a seafaring man all his life as a fisherman, boat builder, and boat captain. Butch has fished for lobsters, scallops, and urchins, has worked in the farmed salmon business, and has been taking fishing parties out to sea for decades. During the summer, he captains nature cruises on the Pier Pressure, a classic lobster boat. He also captains his whale-watching boat and dinner cruises.
Doug Hitchcox
Doug Hitchcox, a Maine native, grew up in Hollis and graduated from the University of Maine in 2011. Throughout college Doug worked at Scarborough Marsh Audubon Center, and he was hired as Maine Audubon’s staff naturalist in the summer of 2013. He was also the Outreach Coordinator for the 2018-2022 Maine Bird Atlas. In his free time, Doug volunteers as one of Maine’s eBird reviewers, and he’s the moderator of Maine’s birding listserv and rare bird GroupMe. He also serves as a York County Audubon board member and is a voting member of the Maine Bird Records Committee.
Bill Kolodnicki
Bill Kolodnicki, a retired Refuge Manager with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was stationed at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge from 2004 to 2016. Previously he was at the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge, Long Island NWR Complex, and with the National Audubon Society. He has been a bird watcher all his life and his graduate work dealt with colonial nesting water birds.
Cathy Lookabaugh
Cathy Lookabaugh joined the Downeast Coastal Conservancy team in February 2020 as the Membership and Outreach Director. Originally from New Jersey, she first moved to the state to attend the University of Maine in Orono, where she graduated with a B.S. in Wildlife Ecology and a B.A. in Mathematics. Her passion for outdoor recreation and her love for sharing nature with others led her to become a Registered Maine Recreation Guide and gain a certification as a Maine Master Naturalist. Cathy lives in Lubec with her husband Ian; you might run into them hiking on local trails or out kayaking in Cobscook Bay.
Spencer McCormick
Spencer found his passion for boating in 2016 while earning his Adventure Recreation and Tourism degree at Washington County Community College in Calais, ME. He can be found sea kayaking and sailing around Cobscook Bay or at the Calais Skatepark teaching skateboarding lessons. He is the Cobscook Shores Outdoor Education Program Coordinator where 12 Cobscook Bay area schools explore local parks via hiking, biking, paddling, x-country skiing and snowshoeing.
Spencer holds a Maine Guide license in Recreation and Sea Kayaking, ACA Level 2 Tandem River Canoe Instructor, ACA Level 3 Coastal Kayak Instructor, Leave No Trace Outdoor Trainer, Wilderness First Responder, and is a Certified Athletic Trainer.
Spencer finds great joy in empowering individuals to overcome personal challenges in unfamiliar environments.
Maurry Mills
Maurry Mills is a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and has been stationed at the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge since 1985. He is one of the original founders of the Downeast Birding Festival and has served on every planning committee since the festival’s beginning. During his 49-year career with the National Wildlife Refuge system, he also has worked at the Rachel Carson Refuge in southern Maine and the Great Swamp Refuge in New Jersey. He is the state coordinator for the annual American Woodcock Singing Ground Survey and the Breeding Bird Survey. One of his specialties is geospatial technology: He is responsible for maintaining databases and generating maps and reports for the Northern Maine Refuge Complex using GIS and GPS applications.
Maurry has been watching birds and other wildlife since the early 1970s. Although his primary interest is in migratory birds, he has also worked with mammals, herps, and vernal pools, and managed forest, wetlands, and grassland habitats for a wide variety of wildlife species. He has also conducted numerous environmental education, interpretation, and outreach programs. He was the handler and caregiver for Bart, a permanently injured Bald Eagle, for 15 years. During that time he visited all the grammar schools in Washington County and other events throughout the state of Maine, presenting programs on the history and life cycle of the Bald Eagle.
One of his current assignments is finalizing Moosehorn’s Habitat Management Plan, which will guide the Refuge’s course of management over the next 15 years. He is also a licensed amateur radio operator with a station capable of providing emergency communications worldwide during events when standard radio and telephone systems are inoperable. During the first few years of his life, he lived on a family farm on land that is now part of the Great Swamp NWR’s Wilderness Area. He currently resides with his wife Beth, and their French Brittany Sadie, in Dennysville along the Dennys River.
Nathaniel Sharp
Nathaniel Sharp encountered his spark bird, a Great Blue Heron, on the Delaware Bayshore at 11 years old and has been hooked on birding ever since. Growing up and getting his birding start in the Philadelphia area, he then attended the University of Vermont, where he received a BA in Wildlife Biology and began work as a point count technician for the Maine Bird Atlas shortly after graduating. With the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, he has assisted long term monitoring and banding of Bicknell's Thrush, Blackpoll Warbler, and other montane species, conducted statewide monitoring of native bees and butterflies, and led birding walks, naturalist outings, and workshops on eBird, iNaturalist, and community science. Nathaniel has enjoyed working as an instructor at Hog Island Audubon Family Camp the past few summers, and is especially passionate about welcoming and mentoring the next generation of birders and ecologists.
Bridget VerVaet
Bridget VerVaet is an environmental educator working at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. She primarily works with school and youth groups, along with teaching the occasionally adult education program or leading member bird walks. Originally from South Bend, Indiana, she has lived in Maine year-round since 2019 and has grown to absolutely treasure spring migration in Maine (but she loves a bird that you can find any time of year as well!).
Before moving to Maine, she studied biology at Indiana University Bloomington where she took an ornithology class that put a verb to what she already liked to do: birding. Up until then, it was all just bird watching sans binoculars – which was good too! In her free time, Bridget loves to be outdoors soaking up nature, crafting (especially crochet and other textile arts), cooking, dancing, or reading.
Chris West
Chris West is the assistant regional wildlife biologist for Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife out of the Jonesboro office. Chris began birding when she was a teenager growing up in New Hampshire’s White Mountains National Forest. Since the early 1990s she has lived in Maine and worked on many different bird surveys throughout the state. She has also spent time on the West Coast volunteering on bird projects, and almost a year on the Gulf of Mexico assessing colonial waterbirds for oil following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Her home is in Orland where she lives near her son, and with her dog, on the eastern channel of the Penobscot River.