Category Archives: Animals

Epic Wildlife Sighting!

For the past few weekends, I’ve been doing what I call “Weekend Technology Hiatuses”. More accurately though, they’re internet hiatuses. I log off on Thursday evening or Friday afternoon and don’t log back on until Monday.

 

These hiatuses (this is going on a month now) have been pretty beneficial. One, they’ve helped me decompress and distance myself from my overuse of the internet. Two, I’ve made major progress with my novel (I’m all done the final round of editing!). And three, I’ve spent more time doing other things I love such as hiking, photography, and making jewelry.

 

This past weekend I went hiking (shocking, I know!), and I’m glad I did because I saw some wildlife I’ve never seen in the flesh with my own eyes before. Gather round for the tale, kids!

 

I went to my trusted hiking standby (as I’m once again out of new places to discover…for now), Quoddy Head State Park. While hiking there, I stopped at my usual spot for lunch at Green Point. Those of you that follow my blog religiously, all two of you, will remember me mentioning this park and this spot many times.

 

Anyway, after I finished photographing all the epic rock stacks that were there (and there were a lot this time), I settled in and had my lunch. When I was packing up to head back to the trails, I noticed something moving in the water. Instinctively, I went for my camera. When I lifted my camera, the thing I saw was gone. I was disappointed, thinking it was a seal that dove under (and those bad boys can swim for quite a while without resurfacing), but just as I was about to forget it and head out, I saw it break the surface again not far from where it had gone under. At first, I didn’t know what I was looking at until I took the picture and reviewed it on the spot. There was a fin. So it wasn’t a seal.

 

It was a dolphin. A freaking dolphin! But even better than that, it wasn’t just one. There were at least five, maybe six!

 

Now, my shots didn’t come out as good as I hoped where the dolphins were out past the range of my camera’s zoom (not to mention I was shaking where I was excited to finally see these awesome creatures first hand instead of in books, movies, or television). But, I managed to get a shot of one of them surfacing!

 

Dolphin 1 (Quoddy)

Dolphin 2 (Quoddy)

 

My day was made in that moment! Big time! How could it not have been!!

 

Oh, and the rest of the hike was nice too (plus, I ended my day with a little blueberry picking). [-_^]

 

 

Until next time…


d_[^_^]

~A.M.

Happy Birthday!…To My Cat!

 

Tomorrow will mark the anniversary of the day one of my cats was born. He’ll be 16 years old. 16! And he’s still the biggest freaking baby. [^_^]

 

So, happy birthday to my boy, Sylvester! And, by proxy, happy birthday to my eldest, Tigger, who’s now 17!

 

 

Happy 16th birthday, Sylvester!

Happy 16th birthday, Sylvester!

 

Happy 17th birthday, Tigger!

Happy 17th birthday, Tigger!

 

 

 

Like Bob Barker always said (and because it‘s a good idea), Help control the pet population. Have your pet spayed or neutered. d_[^_^]

 

Until next time….

 

[^_^]

 

~A.M.

Butterfly

Unfortunately, I haven’t been on any adventures recently even though I have a list of trails I’ve yet to hike.  The weather here hasn’t been all that agreeable lately.  It’s either pouring rain or so unbearably hot that hiking is the last thing I want to do.

But, I won’t leave folks hanging this week, so here’s a picture I took last month of a butterfly that I helped out of the road.  I think a bird might have tried to eat it.  One of its wings was injured.  But, I got it out of the road and into the safety of some bushes.

Butterfly 2

Until next time…

[^_^]

~A.M.

Lighthouse Adventure….Round 2!

Back in 2012, I went on a little trip to the Little River Lighthouse in Cutler Maine (you can view that post here).

This past Saturday was the Summer Solstice and I managed to view another lighthouse, but this one was in Canada.  The Head Harbour Lightstation on Campobello Island to be exact.

The only way to get to this lighthouse is by foot at low tide.  It’s not just a straight shot walk though.  You have to climb down some old rusted metal stairs, cross a small beach, climb up more rusted metal stairs, cross a small wooden bridge, climb down MORE rusted metal stairs (these were a little treacherous as they were more like a ladder and were slanted), and cross another little beach to the actual lighthouse.

I saw this lighthouse before about year or two ago, but I wasn’t there at the right time to get over to it.  So, I just settled for taking a few pictures from the parking lot back then.  This time, I hit it just right (lucky me!)!

It costs $5 to even walk over to the light house and there’s another $10 charge if you want to tour the inside of the keeper’s house and climb the tower.  Well, for me, all that’s a little steep, but I don’t do this every day (or even every year), so I went for it.

The coast guard had possession of this lighthouse for a long time before they decided to shut it down, board it up, and forget about it.  Then, it went down the line, being offered to different outfits/agencies before it was offered to, accepted by, and taken over by the town.  Volunteers and students are still working to restore the lighthouse and keeper’s house to it’s former glory (the full fee for walking over to the light house and touring it goes directly to the restoration/up-keep fund so that made me feel better about paying the price).

It’s a cute little lighthouse.  Getting into the tower, I expected to find the typical spiral staircase curling around the tower, but instead, there were two normal flights of strait stairs and a ladder leading to the light at the top.

It’s typical to see seals and whales from this lighthouse.  I did glimpse a seal, but it was camera shy and dove under the waves just as I lifted my camera.  Oh well.

Head Harbour Lighstation (Campobello)

As I mentioned in my last lighthouse related post, if you ever have a chance to tour a lighthouse and climb the tower….do it!

And if the lighthouse adventure weren’t enough for the day, I also went hiking over in the Roosevelt International Park.  I would highly suggest this park’s trails to anyone that enjoys hiking.  They’re pretty and the views are amazing.  There’s also something called the “Sunsweep Scuplture” near Liberty Point that’s worth checking out.  The cliff it’s on was covered in wild Irises.  I saw an eagle the minute I got out of the car.  I also saw a wild rabbit on the trail!!  Yay wildlife!!

 

 

Eagle

 

Wild Rabbit

 

So, aside from the fact that I fed the mosquitoes and black flies, it was a nice day.

Until next time…

[^_^]

~A.M.

The Grass Is Greener…

…In my front yard, apparently.

This past Thursday, I happened to look out my window around dusk and saw two brown deer in my front yard.  I think they were the same two I saw a few weeks ago when the third deer, the albino, was also here.

Speaking of the albino, she showed up again too.  Like I thought, the three weren’t together because the albino chased the other two off…twice.  But they came back…twice.  So, I guess there’s something good about my lawn.

Not only did the deer come back repeatedly, but when I woke up in the morning to feed my cats, the two brown deer were still in my front yard!  That interested my cats.  Two of them climbed into the window while I was trying to take a few pictures.

To escape my cats’ interference, I took a chance and stepped out onto my porch for a better picture.  I expected them to bolt the minute they heard my front door open, but the larger of the two just perked up a little, looked at me, then went right back to nibbling on the grass.  Here are two of the better images I got (I was still half asleep at the time).

 

Two Deer in My Front Yard

 

Deer In My Front Yard

 

They’re such pretty animals.

Until next time…

[^_^]

~A.M.