The Wrack

What do you do when wild animals move into your attic?

For seven years strong, the Reserve has partnered with Center for Wildlife and York County Audubon to offer Winter Wildlife Day during Maine's school vacation week. Last week, on a balmy February morning with 50 degree temperatures, nearly 200 people attended this family-friendly free event. Some even stayed into the afternoon to sled down the farmhouse hill on the fast disappearing snowpack, and observe a snow sculpture artist in action.

Thirteen Head Start preschools from across York County visited the Reserve on numerous occasions this past year to experience the great outdoors and make exciting wildlife discoveries. They came in the fall, winter, and spring seasons to hear a nature-based story, meet a variety of animal puppets, create a related craft to take home, and walk the trails while engaged in scavenger hunts and sensory adventures.

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 11/2/2014.

From reports, it sounds like this year’s midterm election is a doozy, money-wise: across the country, campaigns are spending record sums marketing their candidates and causes.  So I read, anyway: I do not watch broadcast TV, I have an ad blocker on my computer, and I only listen to satellite radio and MPBN. Voluntarily [and gratefully] deaf to the din from most of the marketing wars, I rarely hear about the latest advances in breakfast cereal, let alone the biannual election season onslaught.

About the only political advertising I do see are ads in newspapers (bless you, candidates, for feeding our starving print publishers), and outdoor campaign signs.

As you walk the loop trails in the Yankee Woodlot, check out our new interpretive signs! On each sign, you'll learn a little more about the Yankee Woodlot timber harvest project. Be sure to also check out these informational videos featuring some of the stars of the Yankee Woodlot project, which can be accessed using the QR codes found on each of the four signs on the trail. You can also view and read…

As you walk the loop trails in the Yankee Woodlot, check out our new interpretive signs! On each sign, you'll learn a little more about the Yankee Woodlot timber harvest project. Be sure to also check out these informational videos featuring some of the stars of the Yankee Woodlot project, which can be accessed using the QR codes found on each of the four signs on the trail. You can also view and read…

The following was published in the Biddeford-Saco Journal Tribune Sunday edition, 4/20/2014.

It’s Easter Weekend, so let me introduce you to the Wells Reserve at Laudholm’s favorite, and most vexing, local bunny.

On December 16th, Suzanne called my office from her car on Laudholm Farm Road to alert me that she had spotted a Canada goose who seemed to be acting strange. The goose had been on or near the road as Suzanne drove by, and when she did it flew into the air, seemed to hesitate as another car approached, and then landed in a bush. When I arrived, the goose remained very still in the bush, only moving to peer at us cautiously. After a call to the Center for Wildlife in Cape Neddick, we decided the goose's behavior was suspect enough to bring her in to the experts.

Wells Reserve, Center for Wildlife, and York County Audubon Society partnered yesterday to offer the third annual Winter Wildlife Day, and 150 people attended! Activities included live animal presentations with non-releasable wildlife ambassadors, tracking walks, face painting, and the creation of plaster track casts, owl window decorations to prevent bird strikes, and binoculars. Snowshoes were available to use on the trails, and hot cocoa greeted visitors when they returned from the outdoors. It was a bustling day with lots of smiling faces!

We had loads of fun with campers this week during school vacation! Both days of Winter Trekkers Camp brought us out on the trails of the Reserve, exploring tracks and scat that wildlife left behind, searching for camouflaged rabbits, looking into tidepools at the beach, and wearing our scientist hats to test the temperature of varied mini-habitats.