Dear deer...

More about the Maine Wildlife Park, which I mentioned in the previous post:

Since I'm working on the artwork for Pond Babies now, the visit was a great chance to photograph baby animals. Well-intention hikers and woods walkers sometimes come across what they think is an abandoned or "lost" fawn, scoop it up, carry it away, and then call wildlife management folks for help. The truth is that a white tail doe carefully "parks" her fawn in a safe place while she grazes nearby. The human would-be rescuers have actually kidnapped the baby. Five of these little critters now make their home at the Wildlife Park, since their moms couldn't be located again. There's a fawn in the book, so this was a good opportunity for me to observe them.

My good friend Nancy went along on this expedition, and came to my rescue with her own camera when mine ran out of battery power. She took this great image of three of the fawn.

Turkey tale

I've spent a lot of time this summer working on block print and collage illustrations for a new picture book called Gobble, Gobble which will be out in the Fall of 2011 from Dawn Publications. The idea for the book came from observing the various antics of the wild turkeys who paraded around here on a regular basis throughout the year. Once I began the actual work, however, the turkeys apparently took up another residence. No turkey sightings all summer---at least not in my backyard. Until this morning. It's good to have them back.

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UPDATE:

A long overdo trip to the Maine Wildlife Park in Gray, Maine was a real treat today. The park is home to many injured, orphaned, or human dependent animals. Most are now permanent residents---some are rehabilitated and released into the wild when possible. In addition to some injured wild turkeys, there are other turkey "visitors" who come to the park on their own accord to take advantage of the free food. This fellow was one of the visiting opportunists: