Our field trip to the Maine Wildlife Park

 This is in front of the Eagle habitat; I couldn’t get a good picture of the birds through the glass–but they were beautiful and awe-inspiring.  A woman who was there with her own kids told us that if we were from the area we could see an eagle over in Windham, and I relayed that we were from “up-North” and we actually have several nesting along the Kennebec.  Bald Eagles have made a good come-back in Maine.

 This wild turkey seemed to like the camera and the attention.

The park has numerous display cases like this set up throughout the park, each one corresponds with the animal habitat you are about to enter, and hosts little mini-exhibits, with animal bones, feathers, nests, egg-shells, and facts about the animal you will see.  This was the display for the turtle exhibit, so it held several turtle shells and fragments of turtle eggs.

Painted turtles are quite common in Maine, but we also have Snapping turtles, Spotted turtles, Wood turtles, Blandings turtles, Musk turtles, and Box turtles. And turtle sculptures.

This is part of the wetland habitat; there were several trails through their wetland, and numerous birdhouses of varying sizes to suit different types of birds, as well as a bat house, and owl house, and a wood duck house.  And obviously birds are not the only creatures that live here, there was a nice little stream that we speculated could be a place where a raccoon might stop to wash his food.

Unfortunately I didn’t get very good pictures–and, while we were standing there observing him he chose to relive himself.  It was very rank–which made it a very memorable experience–to say the least!

Summer had been looking forward to the deer habitat; most of the deer were laying down during the heat of mid-day, but we did get to feed this little doe.  She was so sweet!

We saw the raccoon and watched him eat his lunch.

The fisher.  And their old Albino Porcupine (he was hot too! though I think porcupines are largely nocturnal).

It was feeding time, so I didn’t get very good pictures of the lynx–with the exception for this one below–eating what the animal keepers told us was chicken and rabbit.

The website for the Maine Wildlife Park offers a number of printable educational resources, including a map of the park, animal descriptions, an observational checklist, a scavenger hunt, and more.  It was a wonderful experience, not expensive, and one that I would highly recommend to any family who loves nature and animals and Maine!  But you don’t have to take my word for it–go to Gray and see for yourself!