Location:
This 30-acre island is located in Penobscot Bay, 22 miles east of Rockland,
Knox County. (Approx. 40 minute drive north of Bremen.) Matinicus
Rock is owned by the US Coast Guard and is managed by National Audubon
Society.
Access: Staff and supplies are transported either by chartered boat or aboard a commercial tour boat. An inflatable Avon with oars is kept at the island and is used to row out to meet the boat, which must maintain a safe distance from the rocky island shoreline. A chartered trip may require that staff and supplies travel from Rockland to Vinalhaven via the Maine State Ferry in order to meet the boat. Occasionally, a small plane is taken from the Owl's Head airport to Matinicus Island to meet a boat from Matinicus Island to Matinicus Rock. A lack of sheltered shoreline makes this the most difficult of the islands for landings.
Accommodations:
A historic lighthouse is the hub of the living quarters. Three bedrooms
are available for staff, but sleeping bags are still recommended.
The kitchen area has a propane camp stove and drinking water collected
in the lighthouse's cistern is filtered at the kitchen sink. Electricity
is available most times from the solar array that is used to power the
automated light and fog horn. A solar shower bag is set up in the
shower stall in the lighthouse bathroom. There is a composting toilet
outside the boathouse. A cassette player is available on site.
Duties: The Island Supervisor will outline the specific projects underway when you arrive on the island. Duties may include: daily bird counts, 3-hour blind observation stints, bird banding and censusing.
Wildlife: Atlantic Puffins, Razorbills, Arctic, and Common Terns, Common Murres, Black Guillemots, Laughing Gulls, Leach's Storm-Petrels, Common Eider, and cormorants predominate. Early summer brings a large number of migrant songbirds to the island while late July and August days are excellent for migrating shorebirds. It is possible to see a few pelagic species like shearwaters and gannets. Harbor Seals loaf on the shore at low tide.
Study
Projects: Monitor Arctic Tern, Puffin and Razorbill colony; Common
Murre attraction program; tern feeding, productivity and growth studies;
Laughing Gull predation study.
General information
for research assistants and volunteers
This page is sound
enhanced: