Name/Title
A Cabinet Full of Birds of the Passamaquoddy Region | Poster | 2024Description
A Cabinet Full of Birds of the Passamaquoddy Region. Poster. 2024. 17" x 28". Joint project of the Tides Institute & Museum of Art of Eastport, Maine and Pembroke Library of Pembroke, Maine. Edition of 1,000 copies printed by Penmor Lithographers of Lewiston, Maine.
Poster Text:
The above photograph is of a cabinet full of 30 taxidermied birds collected in the international Passamaquoddy border region of Maine and New Brunswick. The cabinet and bird specimens likely date to about 1900. No one knows who may have collected the birds or created the cabinet full of preserved birds. The cabinet is one of two such cabinets of birds that long resided within the Crescent Masonic Lodge #78 building in Pembroke, Maine. When the lodge closed in 2020, the cabinets were transferred to the library in Pembroke, Maine where they can be viewed first hand. Honoring, collecting and identifying birds has been part of this region for a very long time including the Passamaquoddies to visits by John James Audubon in 1832-1833. For more information about specific birds in the cabinet and other birds found in this region, see Cornell University’s All about Birds website.1 For places to go birding in this area, check out the
Maine Birding Trail website2 or Birding Saint Andrews in New Brunswick.3 See also George A. Boardman’s “Catalogue of the Birds Found in the Vicinity of Calais, Maine, and about the Islands at the Mouth of the Bay of Fundy.”4 A much, much larger collection of taxidermied birds from this region can be found at the Grand Manan Museum on Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick with over 300 birds in 18 cases collected by islander Alan Moses.
1. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/search 2. https://mainebirdingtrail.com/Downeast.html 3. www.townofsaintandrews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/birding_in_sa.pdf Bufflehead (female) Bucephala albeola
4. Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, 9 (1862-1863): pp. 122–132.
The creation and development of this poster is a joint project of the Tides Institute & Museum of Art of Eastport, Maine and the Pembroke Library of Pembroke, Maine. Identification of birds by Georgina Macfarlane, Andrew Macfarlane, Colin MacFarlane, Kiirsti Owen, Thaddeus Holownia and Christopher Bartlett. Photograph by Thaddeus Holownia of Jolicure, New Brunswick. Design by Ashley Hinson Dhakal of Calais, Maine. Special thanks to Fred Gralenski of the Pembroke Library for agreeing to this project and to Christopher Bartlett of the Maine Sea Grant program for his suggestions for sources of more information about birds and birding in this area.
1. Common Loon Gavia immer
2. Common Merganser Mergus merganser
3. Great Black-backed Gull Larus marinus
4. Great Blue Heron Ardea Herodias
5. American Woodcock Scolopax minor
6. Common Grackle Quiscalus quiscula
7. Osprey Pandion haliaetus
8. Surf Scoter (male) Melanitta perspicillata
9. Bald Eagle (juvenile) Haliaeetus leucocephalus
10. Northern Goshawk Accipiter gentilis
11. Northern Shrike Lanius excubitor
12. Belted Kingfisher (juvenile) Ceryle alcyon
13. Coopers Hawk Accipiter cooperii
14. Common Murre Uria aalge
15. Common Tern Sterna hirundo
16. American Black Duck Anas rubripes
17. Leach’s Storm-Petrel Oceanodroma leucorhoa
18. Solitary Sandpiper Tringa solitaria
19. Dovekie Alle alle
20. Semipalmated Sandpiper Calidris pusilla
21. Black Guillemot Cepphus grylle
22. Ruddy Duck (female) Oxyura jamaicensis
23. Greater Scaup (male) Aythya marila
24. Spotted Sandpiper Actitis macularia
25. Greater Yellowlegs Tringa melanoleuca
26. Pied-billed Grebe Podilymbus podiceps
27. Black-legged Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla
28. Wood Duck (female) Aix sponsa
29. Greater Scaup (female) Aythya marila
30. Bufflehead (female) Bucephala albeola