Maine Day 2 – Maine Wildlife Park

Maine Wildlife Park, Gray, ME

 

Day two of out trip and we had to change our plans due to weather. We planned to go to the Maine Wildlife Park on Wednesday but now the weather is calling for rain on that day. So since the park is outside it made sense to go today while it was nice.

Today was a nice day with great temperatures and clear skies. We arrived at the park around noon and started our journey.

Deer

The first enclosures we went to held some deer including one that had white hair. It was not a true albino but was cool either way. There were maybe three or four deer in the enclosure but they were in the shade and hard to see and get photos of.

Other Small Animals

The next few enclosures housed a few different animals. The consisted of a Skunk, Woodchuck, Fisher, Raccoons (normal and white), Beaver, and a Porcupine. Some of them were not out and active while others were very playful.

The Fisher, for example, would run around his enclosure and jump up on the fence and hang there for a bit before jumping back to the ground. The White Raccoon was moving around while the other raccoon just laid there. The Woodchuck and Bever were not in their pens at this time.

White Raccoon

Moose

Next, we went to see the Moose that they have in the park. Over the last couple trips to Maine, we have tried to find a Moose in the wild with no luck. So for us just seeing some would be a cool thing.

When we got to the Moose pen we found that they had four Moose. Two Bulls and two females. Again we had the issue of the pens being in the shade and not only that the Moose were all laying against the fence in the dark.

We were able to get pretty close and could see them well but with the fencing and them laying down getting a good photo of them was impossible. Either way, we were able to finally see a live Moose and one of the females even sneezed wich was unexpected.

Lynx

When we got to the enclosures for the Lynx we saw two of them. As we noticed with any zoo the animals sleep a lot and these two were no exception. They were taking a cat nap in the sunlight making it had to get a photo of them that was not washed out.

Lynx

Bobcat

The Bobcat on the other had was awake and sitting up. The problem with him was not the sun but the fencing that was around him. Again another shot that was hard to get.

Bobcat

Mountian Lion

I have never seen a Mountain Lion close up before just in museums stuffed. This one was pretty big and intimidating. Not something I would want to run into while out hiking.

Now it was sleeping but every time I got close to take a picture it would open its eyes and stare me down. Very pretty animal for sure.

Mountain Lion

Cougar

Out of all the animals, we saw at the Maine Wildlife Park the Cougar was the most active. He was walking his enclosure and taking a drink of water. Lucky for me I was right there when he did it.

The Cougar was very pretty and photogenic. It was basically posing for me.

Cougar

Coyote

There was also a Coyote there too. When we went to see it they just finished feeding it. They let it out of the feeding enclosure and it ran into the bushes and out of sight. I checked back a few times and it never did come out of hiding.

Black Bears

The Black Bear enclosure was void of other people when we walked up. We noticed they had two Black Bears that looked a little different but were very active.

One of the bears was sitting staring up at us from his pen. Then we realized that there were two feeding machines that for a quarter you could feed the bears some pellets. We fed them a few times and I got some nice shots through the glass of them.

Black Bear

Bird Exhibit

The next stop was the bird exhibits. Now this was disappointing since many of the birds were not in their enclosures for one reason or another. Another disappointing thing was the sun shining into the chicken wire made it difficult to get any pictures and the birds moved to the back out of the sun.

There was a Bald and Golden Eagle also there but they had glass in front of their enclosure that reflected everything in the area.

Owl

Turtle Pond

Next stop was the turtle pond. I was surprised at how many turtles they had in the pond. Also, they must see many people due to when we walked up they did not jump into the water like the ones I have seen in the wild.

One thing I did notice were the leeches on the turtle shells. I have never seen that before and have no idea why they are on the shells and not the turtle themselves.

Turtle

Another animal in the pond was a couple of frogs and a bunch of tadpoles. They also were not afraid of us and allowed us to get close for some nice images.

Frog

Dry Mills Fish Hatchery

Dry Mills Fish Hatchery was pretty neat to check out. You can see the fish in the building swimming down towards the exit. At the end, there is a big holding area that the fish are in till they are collected and moved to stock some lakes nearby.

In the holding area, they said were around 6000 fish.

fish

Maine Warden Service Museum

The last place we checked out was the Maine Warden Service Museum. It is not a big building but has some neat old gear and information from years past and present.

Warden Service Museum

Source: http://www.bigalsadventures.com/maine-day-...