Category Archives: Wildlife

This is what happened when the bobcat came back

We hadn’t been to the game camera to look for bobcat pictures in a week. The melting and compacting snow made it easier for the bobcat to move, and I’d stopped feeding him. The last visit to the site was on March 10 when he walked through. Parts of the carcasses were left beneath the […]

How to live peacefully with a killer bobcat

killer bobcat

Note: My circumstances are not like those of the folks who live in Orono and had a bobcat problem. I live in the woods and own enough land to try a different approach. The blanket “don’t feed the wildlife” statement does not fit all situations. This is Part One of our experience in living in […]

Live nature cameras to watch while you’re stuck indoors

whitetail bucks

Are you running out of things to do indoors while it snows again? It’s harder than usual to get outdoors this winter but we can at least watch what’s happening outdoors while staying warm in our homes. I’m a live camera fanatic. I almost always have one running in the background while I’m writing. If […]

Talking Hunting on Maine Outdoors

Maine Outdoors, deer hunting, bear hunting, turkey hunting, Robin Follette

I was a guest on Maine Outdoors on WVOM a couple of weekends ago. Thanks to Kevin Smith for inviting me to be on the show again. It was a blast! I love radio. I slapped my hand over my mouth a couple of times to quell what would seem like inappropriate laughter since listeners […]

Stuffed Venison Burgers – Cooking Wild Game

cooking wild game, cooking venison, cooking deer, deer recipe

Cooking Wild Game Venison is versatile. Anything you can do with beef can be done with venison. I craved a burger last week and didn’t want just a cheese burger, it had to be something really good. It took a few hours to think of something different while the burger from my deer thawed. Cheddar […]

My big buck’s shoulder mount – ruined or saved?

whitetail shoulder mount

It’s been an excellent year. Patience has paid off. I’ve put a lot of meat in the freezer this year. My spring turkey hunt produced a large tom with a 9.5 inch beard early on opening day. I shot my first bear on September 4 and have an awesome story to go with it. Finally, […]

Politics, Hunting, and Sunrise on Democrat Ridge

Surise on Democrat Ridge

The television was spewing hateful political ads and bad news when Steve turned it on this morning. I wasn’t long in turning it off. Facebook wasn’t much better. I’m sick to death of all this trash talk. It seems like there’s no getting away from hate and discontent in today’s connected world, and Tuesday can’t […]

Getting Reacquainted & Outdoors Fitness

Hi! Remember me? “How vain it is to sit down to write, when you have not stood up to live.” Henry David Thoreau I’ve been away from this blog for a while. I have been living so much I’ve barely written a word in months. We fished a lot this summer. I caught the biggest […]

Banding Geese at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge

My daughter Taylor is the Youth Conservation Corps leader at Moosehorn National Refuge. When she mentioned banding geese I was all over it. “Can I help?” “I think so. Call Maury or Ray.” Maury Mills manages the Woodcock Singing Ground Survey I’ve been participating in for so long, and Ray Brown allowed me to go […]

A testy bull moose at Sandy Stream Pond

Bull moose at Sandy Stream Pond, Baxter State Park

My sister Melissa called to invite me to hike in Baxter State Park. The weather was going to be perfect so we made a date to meet early Thursday morning. Snapping turtles are on the move. We saw five or six along the way, none willing to move out of the road at anything other […]

Help please! Can you identify these dragonflies?

These gorgeous dragonflies (or maybe they’re not dragonflies?) and others buzzed around the pond yesterday afternoon, eating black flies and mosquitoes. I’m very fond of dragonflies and appreciate them flying inches from my head to catch the biting bugs while I work in the garden. I don’t know the identification of any of these dragonflies […]

The weather was lousy on opening day of turkey season but that didn’t stop me

It was raining hard at 2 am and pouring by 3:30 am. Howling wind kept me awake most of the night. It was opening day of the spring turkey hunt. “I’d be happy to just go for a ride and stay dry and see what happens,” I offered. Steve, my husband, didn’t answer me. We […]

Turkey season opens Monday and I won’t be hunting here

Eastern Wild Turkey (hen)

We’ve been scouting turkeys for more than a week now and haven’t found anything close to home to pursue when the season opens Monday morning. We’ve seen two lone hens, always in the same spot so they’re most likely on nests, jakes and a tom. The jakes and tom are in an area we can’t […]

Should we delay shed hunting?

Over the last three months I haven’t seen many deer or deer signs. They’ve had a hard winter with deep snow starting in December and continuing into April. Parts of Maine have had four or more ice storms, two of them significant. I drove to Grand Lake Stream on Tuesday and Houlton on Wednesday, and […]

A ruffed grouse budding on a late afternoon

I’ve been watching for the grouse, curious about how well they’ve managed this winter. Now and then I get a glimpse of one when I’m walking in the woods. Last year’s wet spring during nesting time drowned a lot of nests and chicks. I’ve seen the snow roosts left behind after nights spent in the […]

Jennifer Vashon, bear biologist, talks about Maine’s bears

Jennifer Vashon, one of Maine’s bear biologists, was a guest with Tom Saviello on Talkin’ Maine. I was happy to see the show on Vimeo as this isn’t a program I can watch at home. Have you ever wondered how biologists age a bear? Are sows pregnant during hunting season? And when do they give […]

Life in the woods: Blood on the snow

Fresh blood on granular snow

Life in the woods is never dull. There’s always something to do and see. Activities change with the seasons as does the view. It’s easier in a snowy winter to see what happened when you weren’t looking, when you weren’t there. Most of the time it’s beautiful. The snow hangs in the trees after a […]