Gilsland Farm Audubon Center

I've only been to Maine once but I've visited Gilsland Farm a handful of times, it was one of my favorite spots on the trip so I tried to go at sunrise every morning and be back before the rest of the family was ready to start the day. I didn't have my best camera gear along for the trip but still managed to get some shots I was pleased with, especially since I rarely get to see most of these creatures.

American Bullfrog

Am I Supposed to Hate You or Not? Bullfrogs are native to the States but not all states. I came across this beautiful little fellow on a rainy day in Maine and wondered whether it was native to Maine or not? They are native to the eastern US, but I wasn't sure how far north their range naturally extended. I wish had used more depth of field here to keep more of the raindrops and lily pads in focus. I was travelling on a family vacation and didn't have the tripod along to accomodate the slower shutter speed, but in retrospect I should have bumped the ISO up a couple of stops instead.

Eastern Chipmunk

I was just learning photography at the tail end of my graduate career in the mid-90's, and chipmunks provided some of my earliest successes as I hiked the trails of Pipestem and Bluestone State Parks in West Virginia. Not surprisingly eastern chipmunks were one of the earliest galleries on my website, but over time I took the gallery down since it no longer met my standards. We moved to Oregon not long after and since then on every trip back east, I've tried unsuccessfully to get better pictures of these little creatures. I had better luck in Maine so it is with great pleasure that I am re-introducing eastern chipmunks to the site, taken during our trip to Maine.

Welcome back little ones!

Groundhogs (aka Woodchucks)

My mother-in-law wanted her ashes spread near a favorite lighthouse in Maine so the family gathered in the Portland on the east coast and we spent a week visiting relatives in the area. Since it was a family trip and not a photography outing, I left the big lens and tripod at home in the Portland on the west coast. I did bring my camera and two zooms, I didn't know what to expect but they pack down pretty small and were easy enough to take along even if I didn't get a chance to use them.

My wife and I discovered the delightful Gilsland Farm Audubon Center in nearby Falmouth, Maine, on our first full day in the state. It was hot and humid and we didn't expect to see much, but my spirits rose when we discovered groundhogs near the headquarters! Thereafter I started getting up at 4:30am each morning to visit the refuge for a few hours of photography and still got back in time for breakfast before most of the others had gotten up.

In this close-up of one of the adults about to take a big bite out of an apple, you can see an identification tag in its ear. The groundhogs (also known as woodchucks) there are being studied and sport tags in both ears.

Based on my studies, I'd say they really like apples.

Hold Your Apples High! I had been visiting Gilsland Farm for several days in a row letting this groundhog get used to me, so it was rather nonplussed when I slowly approached and lay flat on the rain-soaked ground. It worked an apple from start to finish, suddenly raising it high when it was nearly at the core, yielding one of my favorite pictures of the trip.

The Rain in Maine Falls Mainly on the Woodchuck You know you've been living in Oregon too long when you actually like photographing wildlife in the rain. Trained by years of hiking in my Portland, I brought along a pair of rain pants on our visit to the other Portland. They were put to good use on this rainy morning, even laying down in the wet grass I stayed nice and dry. The groundhogs were not so fortunate and were soaked through and through. Their wet fur has a bit of a porcupine appearance to it, but the apparent spines are actually the long guard hairs that the shorter underfur has clumped around, nicely showing off the white tips that give the fur a frosted look.

Bluetooth The tags the refuge used to identify the woodchucks remind me of little bluetooth headsets. I was protected on this rainy morning by my fancy rain gear but the camera and lens had to make do with plastic bags. It's a crude system but it's worked for 15 years so I haven't had much reason to improve it. The bags are made out of thick plastic as they are from the Virginia Tech campus bookstore, designed to hold heavy textbooks, so they've put up with decades of abuse. They are finally starting to show their age so at some point I'll need to look for an alternative but for now they remain the best bang-for-the-buck tool in my photography kit.

Behold the Mighty Groundhog! A yawn can make just about any animal seem ferocious.

Not So Ferocious Groundhogs are primarily herbivores, often sitting back on their haunches and pulling plants to their mouths. Their love of plants makes them the enemy of gardeners, which I suppose is why the community gardens at Gilsland Farm Audubon Center were all fenced in.

Wild Turkey

Opportunity I'm a night owl by nature so one of the hardest lessons in photography for me to take to heart is to be up early and often. The reptilian part of my brain does its best to get me to go back to sleep when the alarm clock rings, so some deeply buried part of my consciousness has to struggle with all its might to win out and get me up and out of bed. While we were in Maine, it was a little easier to win that battle as I knew I had an opportunity to photograph creatures I've rarely seen since moving to the west coast. After visiting Gilsland Farm Audubon Center one afternoon, I returned four more times at sunrise and am glad I did, even if it left me pretty tired by the end of the trip. It was the third and fourth visits that yielded my best pictures, such as this wild turkey that visited to feed most of the mornings of my visit.

Who Am I? Ben Franklin once wrote his daughter that a poorly drawn insignia looked less like a bald eagle and more like me, which didn't displease him since even I would have been a better representative of the young United States than the eagle. Who am I?

If you're particularly clever, you might have guessed the answer from the pictures. The snood hangs over the top of the beak while the wattle hangs below.