Birding Reid State Park in Georgetown, Maine

Reid State Park is a place where anything seems possible.

For generations, Reid has been one of Maine’s premier summer destinations. Located on the Georgetown peninsula, the park encompasses more than 750 acres and stretches for several miles along the Atlantic Ocean. Named for Walter East Reid, who donated the land to the State of Maine in 1946, it became Maine’s first state-owned saltwater beach.

On warm July afternoons, families spread blankets across Mile Beach, children climb the rocks of Griffith Head, and visitors from across New England come to enjoy what many consider one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in the Northeast. Unlike the bustling beaches farther south, Reid manages to retain a wild character where sweeping dunes, rocky headlands, salt marshes, and spruce forests meet the Atlantic Ocean. To most visitors, it is simply a spectacular place to spend a summer day.

Birders, however, know Reid State Park as something more. Despite its extraordinary diversity of habitats and its reputation among local birders, Reid remains surprisingly underbirded when compared with some of Maine’s better-known hotspots. As of this writing, 262 species have been reported from the park, only slightly fewer than the 273 species recorded at Scarborough Marsh’s Eastern Trail and the 265 species at Maine Audubon’s Gilsland Farm in Falmouth. Yet the difference in observer effort is striking. More than 8,300 eBird checklists have been submitted from Scarborough Marsh and Gilsland Farm, while Reid has attracted only 2,840 checklists. In other words, Reid has nearly matched the species totals of Maine’s most heavily birded locations despite receiving barely one-third of the coverage. That disparity suggests that many surprises remain to be found on a visit to Reid State Park.

Map of Reid State Park, Georgetown, Maine.