This is my first posting to a blog, well, at least to one belonging to me. So please bear with me and be kind when posting comments. :-)
I decided to start a blog on my site as a way of displaying my work to others and to share my images with family and friends; hopefully I will make more friends along the way while taking this new journey.
This post is to display and share some images I took while on vacation at Acadia National Park in Maine. I had always wanted to go and spend some time there exploring the island and capturing its beauty to share. In the beginning of July my family and I decided to go on a camping trip there. We stayed at the Blackwoods Campground in the National Park and used this point as our base camp for exploring.
Main webpage of selected images from our trip: http://www.brianlumb.com/p104541083
We arrived on Monday, July 8th at about 4pm, after driving about 5-1/2 hours, including stops. The weather was cool, high 60's and the island was covered in fog. I guess that this is typical for this time of year, actually typical for New England; wait 5 minutes and the weather will change.
We spent the rest of Monday setting up the campsite; tents, canopy, and other essentials. I then drove into Bar Harbor to pick up supplies. We didn’t bring any firewood, as requested, for the fear of bringing non native bugs into the area. I also picked up food for the week as we didn’t pack any due to the limited space in the vehicle. Tents, sleeping bags, clothing, bicycles, and other gear for 2 adults and three teenagers took up a lot of space. After I had returned from the store I set a campfire where we enjoyed the rest of the evening under the stars.
On Tuesday, July 9th, we decided to walk the trail from our site at the top of the site to the coast to view the Atlantic Ocean from the cliffs. We enjoyed a beautiful walk through the forest. Trees growing from the rocks, nature reclaiming its the island from manmade structures, and even young trees stretching in different directions to claim some space.
Shortly after I captured this image: (6 bracketed shots compiled for High Dynamic Range image)
Local flora growing amongst the cliffs:
On our way to our site to have dinner and settle in for the night we spotted a large bird flying low to the ground, through the trees, moving from tree to tree. It was a large, fast, and graceful bird, one that I had never seen before. I tried to move quickly, and quietly, so I could get close enough to get a photograph of it. Every time I got close and the camera up to focus, only to see the bird would fly away. I managed to get several shots off but only one was close, it still could have been sharper but it would have to do.
Do you know what it is?
I knew it was a woodpecker but not the type. It is a Pileated Woodpecker, one of the largest in the woodpecker family. The picture is deceiving; the Pileated Woodpecker is a large bird, up there in size with a crow or a hawk.
We returned to site to have lunch and explore options for the remainder of the day and days to follow....