The Natural History Center

21/05/2024

Live cams for watching birds have become quite popular, but what is better than watching one for a place we love such as Mount Desert Island. The MDI High School has a live feed of their Ospry nest! (Click on the link below to be redirected to the live cam.)

05/05/2024

Photos taken yesterday at Acadia National Park's Sieur de Monts Spring. This time of year, you expect Summer Tanagers In Virginia and south.

03/05/2024

Today marks our 14th year in business!

02/05/2024

Please help or friends at Maine Natural History Observatory with this fundraising request.

Help get MNHO back on the road (and on the water)!
⁠
Here’s what’s going on. In 2013, the Observatory bought its trusty 2001 Toyota Tacoma as a used vehicle with over 133 thousand miles. Now, 10+ years and 160 thousand miles later, we’ve just learned from our mechanic that the frame is rusting away. We’ve been budgeting to make this replacement for several years, but this sudden rust issue means that we have an immediate shortfall of about $8,000 in our truck budget.

You can help by sending a gift by June 1st so we don’t lose any fieldwork days this summer! Learn more at www.mainenaturalhistory.org

The truck is essential equipment for all the work the Observatory does surveying Maine’s flora and fauna.
It is used for:
1. Towing and launching boats into salt water upwards of 40 times a year to conduct fieldwork on Maine islands.
2. Numerous trips to remote areas in Maine to survey birds on logging roads.
3. Travel up and down the coast to conduct seaweed, plant, owl, and nightjar surveys.

How you can help:
1. Become a member of the Observatory (there are lots of benefits to membership!) or renew your existing membership at www.mainenaturalhistory.org.⁠ 100% of your membership dollars received during May will go toward this project.
2. Donate to the truck replacement fund online at www.mainenaturalhistory.org
Thank you!⁠

22/04/2024

Earth Day and the return of Wood Ducks are sure signs of spring. Happy Earth Day!

21/04/2024

Some sort of amphibian eggs along Acadia National Park’s Wonderland Trail.

16/03/2024

The amazing story of the Steller's Sea Eagle continues. It was just posted to the "Steller's Sea Eagle in Canada" Facebook group that it was seen at Robin Hood Bay Landfill in St. John's, Newfoundland! This is the photo that was posted.

07/03/2024

A Gray Whale was seen off Nantucket. This is exciting: it's one of only five Gray Whales observed in the North Atlantic Ocean in the past 200 years (and all of those have been in the past 15 years!).

The whale was spotted 30 miles south of the Massachusetts island Friday diving and resurfacing, appearing to feed. Scientists say climate change may be why the species has reappeared.

16/02/2024

Here is a sampling of nature photos from West West Texasn New Mexico, and Colorado.

16/02/2024

Tomorrow begins the Great Backyard Bird Count. For the next four days, people around the world will share their bird observations. It's fun! It contributes to science. It's free. And did I mention it is fun? If you already post your observations to eBird, you need do nothing else other than go birding. It only takes 15 minutes per day. (I'll be birding down at Hueco Tanks State Park in Texas.)

Each year people from around the world come together to watch, learn about, count, and celebrate birds. Join us in February!

08/02/2024

"Birds of Maine" is an amazing book! If you are interested in Maine's avifauna, especially from an historical viewpoint, you can order this book for an amazingly cheap $12.50!

A comprehensive and beautifully illustrated overview to the birds of Maine

09/01/2024

I was excited to learn that, once again, Wisdom, the female Laysan Albatross that has been nesting for decades on Midway Atoll, is back!

Wisdom a mōlī or Laysan albatross has returned to Kuaihelani (Midway Atoll) and was sighted on December 3, 2023 by US Fish and Wildlife Service Supervisory Wildlife Biologist, Jon Plissner doing al…

03/01/2024

While I eagerly await skiable snow, I am set to thinking about polar adventure. Herbert George Ponting (1870-1935) was a photographer and cinematographer best known for his work capturing some of the most enduring images of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Ponting's 1911 poem, “The Sleeping Bag” is a fun play with words:

"The Sleeping Bag"

On the outside grows the furside. On the inside grows the skinside.
So the furside is the outside and the skinside is the inside.
As the skinside is the inside (and the furside is the outside)
One 'side' likes the skinside inside and the furside on the outside.
Others like the skinside outside and the furside on the inside
As the skinside is the hard side and the furside is the soft side.
If you turn the skinside outside, thinking you will side with that 'side',
Then the soft side furside’s inside, which some argue is the wrong side.
If you turn the furside outside – as you say, it grows on that side,
Then your outside’s next the skinside, which for comfort’s not the right side.
For the skinside is the cold side and your outside’s not your warm side
And the two cold sides coming side-by-side are not the right sides one 'side' decides.
If you decide to side with that 'side', turn the outside furside inside
Then the hard side, cold side, skinside’s, beyond all question, inside outside.