Birding AMC, from the mountains to the sea

AMC Outdoors, Web Exclusive, May 2004

Fellow hikers aren't the only creatures you'll encounter at AMC destinations across the Northeast this spring and summer. Whether you've stepped outside an AMC hut to investigate the White Mountains alpine zone or are exploring the fields and forests that cradle New Jersey's Mohican Outdoor Center, keep an eye — and an ear — out for the presence of our feathered friends. This is just a sampling of the birds you're likely to see, and of the destinations where you can see them. As always, practice Leave No Trace principles and don't feed, disturb, or touch wildlife. And wherever you go, don't forget your binoculars!

In the Mountains

At the high huts of the White Mountains, the alpine zone attracts some unusual residents. The American pipit is found here, as is Bicknell's thrush, though you may be more likely to hear these reclusive birds than see them. Though the huts open after the early spring warbler migration, some species nest nearby. (Hut naturalists can help you learn more about who's in residence.) You'll also find various types of woodpeckers, flycatchers, sparrows, and other forest inhabitants that are active — and audible — along the trails.

When you're exploring around Pinkham Notch Visitor Center and the Highland Center in Crawford Notch, keep an eye out for three-toed and black-backed woodpeckers; boreal chickadees; white-winged crossbills; and, of course, the ubiquitous gray jay. You might find peregrine falcons nesting on the cliffs of Crawford Notch.

Cardigan Lodge, in southern New Hampshire, is a great area to find hairy and downy woodpeckers, white-breasted and red-breasted nuthatches, dark-eyed juncos and solitary and red-eye vireos by day, and barred and great horned owls by night.

This year's August Camp is in Keene Valley, in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks — an alpine area that hosts many of the species found in the White Mountains. Look for Bicknell's thrush, Swainson's thrush, and the blackpoll warbler at high elevations. Elsewhere in the forest, you might find spruce grouse, black-backed woodpeckers, red and white-winged crossbills, and peregrine falcons.

In the Woods

Little Lyford Pond Camps, located in central Maine just 15 miles east of the town of Greenville, is surrounded by spruce-fir and hardwood forest. The mountains and waterways of this area can offer a glimpse of the spruce grouse, black-backed woodpecker, yellow-bellied flycatcher, northern raven, gray jay, boreal chickadee, winter wren, Swainson's and gray-cheeked thrushes, golden-crowned kinglet, blackpoll warbler, white-throated sparrow, and dark-eyed junco.

Mohican Outdoor Center sits in the 70,000-acre Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, whose diverse landscape has been at least a temporary home to 260 bird species — including more than 30 species of warblers that migrate through each spring. Other inhabitants of the fields, forests, grasslands, and ravines of the area range from hermit thrush to herons, from bald eagles to ruffed grouse.

On the Water

Echo Lake Camp lies just outside Maine's Acadia National Park, a great place to spot loons, cormorants, herons, scoters, and guillemots. You may also come across plovers and sandpipers, as well as an assortment of warblers, finches, and other woods-dwellers. Farther south in the state, the coastal Knubble Bay Camp and Beal Island Campground provide wonderful put-ins for communing with sea birds while you paddle.

At Three Mile Island on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee, you can drift asleep to the haunting call of loons on the lake. Spring migrants to look out for include horned grebe, ring-necked duck, common goldeneye, bufflehead, and common merganser.

Fire Island Camp in Atlantique, N.Y., is one of the state's prime birding locations. Thanks to diverse habitat and its location on a migration route, it's home or resting area to more than 330 species, including warblers in the spring and raptors in the fall. Those that breed on the island include, among many others: egrets, ibis, ring-necked pheasants, piping plovers, oystercatchers, carolina wrens, yellow warblers, and the seaside sparrow.