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Post Your Own Wildlife Photography

It turns out what I had identified as a common dolphin in the series above is actually a harbor porpoise.

Someone on a wildlife forum helped me out. I think I need to study up on dolphin vs porpoise!

Anyway, we are now back in Maine until Sept 3. Smartphone hotspots and tablets are good for reading and surfing the web but chew data if I connect my notebook to upload photos.

Just for kicks, posting this from my tablet. This is the view from the old shack. The mountains across the bay are Acadia National Park. Posting one photo from the tablet is like 10x the effort from a notebook.

Currently I'm im my bedroom and if it was daytime this would be my view if there wasn't so much 100 year old family junk between me and the window.

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Still in Maine. Today I got one of my rarist animals to photograph and almost outside my door.

In my last post above I provided a picture of the view from our old house. The house is just across the street behind me taking the photo above.

I have walked across the street and down that field at least 50 times this week. Today at late afternoon to dusk I saw such a great critter. A porcupine. It has a very will traveled, and sat in, patch of tall grass just below a crabapple tree. I have no idea if he's been sitting there all week and I never noticed or if he only comes by from time to time.

Regardless, I visited him from time to time over about 90 minutes hoping to get a face shot. While he showed his backed to me many times, he never moved 3 feet from this spot below his crabapple tree and the several already on the ground and some eaten.

I will check later tonight and tomorrow if he just stays there with his apples. Literally it's a 20 second walk frim door to check on him.

He could have easily gone into the deep woods today but steadfastly chose not to do so.

Ps. 10pm now. I took a look. Not there. I did grab an apple off the tree. Took a bite or 5. Not crabapples at. More like uncultivated Granny Smiths, quite good but would used another eeek to ripen.

Less afraid and didn't turn his quills to me
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Earlier photo showing me hid backsde
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More other photos to come when I return home on Labor day. Doing this from mt tablet.
 
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Bush katydid.

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Red-legged grasshopper.

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Young wood duck.

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Monarch butterfly caterpillars.

Rob
 
We got home from our last vacation to Maine yesterday and I have a few photos. This will be 4 pages.

A Herring Gull has dragged a Jonah crab onto shore and is proceeding to eat it.
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A Ruby Throated Humming Bird at the feeder
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A Loon off shore appears to be eating or trying to eat a lobster! What is one big task!
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A Willet at the Petit Manan Wildlife refuge. This is my first Willet photo that I know of
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A "Steve". I have no idea how my kids came up with that name but all grasshoppers of this kind are named "Steve".
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Page 2/4

Assorted shells. Mussel, periwinkle, driller, conch shell, The claw of a Jonah crab.
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The Semipalmated Plovers have arrived in Maine. They flock together and comb the beach together. Later this season the semipalmated Sandpipers will also arrive. The two species love to hang out together and when spooked they even fly off and fly off together only to sand at the same spot of the beach.
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Closeup of the Semipalmated Plover. Very cute birds.
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"Mt Sticky-Toes" No idea what kind of toad or frog this is. Hes on the wall of the house hanging on with his sticky toes.
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A Harbor Seal off the coast of the Wonderland Section of Acadia National Park. I hear them a lot at our house. Off shore there are a number of small rocky islands lacking any trees. At night they sit on those rocks and I can hear them bark, grunt, roar, and moan.
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Page 3 of 4

A butterfly of some kind sitting on a pile of sea weed. I would never have spotted it except that I saw it land there. Blends right in.
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The Osprey are back at the nest on the power pole at Mud Creek. Last summer they were gone. Back this year.
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A dragonfly on a rock. I'm not up on my dragonflies
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A Black Guillemot. It was feeding down at the harbor. I don't typically see them there. These guys are divers for food. They go under for maybe 30-45 seconds looking for food. They are also tiny. Probably 1/4 the size of a mallard duck.
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Probably a hare and not a rabbit. Hares appear to be more common than rabbits in Maine.
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page 4 of 4.

Lastly, the porcupine kept showing up. The house has been occupied by people for almost a month and all of a sudden the last 3 days he has shown up.

Being nocturnal, the porcupine would be out in the morning. Go missing during the day and then come out at dusk. Sometimes on the other side of the street. And sometimes across the street by the house.

Here he is right next to our front deck. He didn't mind our watching him. He would puff up his spines if I got within 5 or 6 feet but otherwise would just continue what he was doing, here eating grass and weeds. Porcupines might not be fast but they sure are slow. This is the slowest moving animal I have ever met. Sadly that's why there are so many dead ones on the side of the roads. Porcupines and skunks.
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Best closeup I got of his face. Notice his two front teeth, porcupines being a rodent.
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Crappy cell phone picture taken through the windshield of my car of the reason to drive carefully this time of year.
 
Deer are bad enough. I imagine a moose could take out anything short of an 18-wheeler.

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Common buckeye.

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Cricket.

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Bold jumping spider.

Rob
 
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This little guy fell down the chimney in a part of the house that isn't used much and couldn't climb back up. By the time I figured out that the occasional shrieks were coming from the house and not the roof he must have been there for several days.

He wasn't happy about being crowded into a box, but you should have seen him shinny up that tree!

Sorry about the photo quality. I think he's a young brush tailed possum.
 
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Eastern phoebe.

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Eastern bluebird.

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Funnel-web spider. (US version, pretty much harmless.)

Rob
 
Laying on my back in the weeds, hanging with my best bud... not exactly "wild" life, but ... life.
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A bark centipede.

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An eastern bluebird.

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A blue jay, camouflaging well against a gray sky.

Rob
 
Get a look at that bee - it may be one of the last you'll see.


That's highly implausible - honey bees are not particularly endangered or at risk.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bee-species-endangered/


Bees are attracted to certain chemicals that do not exist naturally... Antifreeze, for example, tricks bees into thinking they are getting a good sugar source, but ultimately it poisons their honey production and kills the colony. Urbanization is certainly damaging the bee population. Don't eat the blue honey!
 
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