Saturday night was an event we had read about last weekend and were looking forward to, a nighttime walk at the Maine Wildlife Park in Gray. When we first read about it we were picturing a hike with a leader. Nope, it’s just that the Wildlife Park was open in the evening, from 8 to 10 PM. There was a full moon, so it wasn’t awfully dark.
The wildlife park has mostly rescued animals, all native to the state. It’s definitely a place to keep in mind if you’ve got some kids with you. If you want to get a good close look at moose, after coming to terms with the fact that you probably won’t see any in the wild in just a couple of days, it’s a great place. At least, Saturday night the moose were up and about and close to the front of their enclosure. The park has lots of bobcats, which I’m not at all sure I’ve ever seen before, lynx, porcupines, deer, bear, birds of prey, wild turkeys, chukar (that’s a small bird in the quail department), and at least one fisher (that’s an arboreal animal in the weasel family — imagine if otters lived in trees). There are lots of signs telling about where in the state the various animals are found, what they eat (pine martens, a larger relative of the fisher, are about the only animal that preys on porcupines), and so on. The animals seem to have plenty of room to move around, except that the fisher was hyperkinetic, jumping from one side of the enclosure to the other and bouncing off the fence on the side away from us.
It was a little like Halloween. When else do you find lots of people walking around outdoors with flashlights?
We were there for the full two hours. At the end it was too dark to see the animals except for the reflection of my flashlight in the deers’ eyes.
Fisher cats always make me think of Thornton Burgess! This sounds like a wonderful place.