Pictures -- Mammals & Birds
Left: Moose poop, which you would expect to be much bigger given the size of them. In parts of VT, NH, and ME, the trail would be covered in these terds -- signs that a moose or multiple moose lived nearby and frequently used the trail for transport. Heck, if you had a 4-foot long board nailed to your forhead, you would not to walk through a grove of pine trees either.
Right: Moose tracks, which also could be found along the trail, usually in muddy areas.
This is a moose -- a mutant horse with the intellect of a cow. This particular moose I saw in Maine; as I neared the lake, I heard something running out of the water and immediately knew what it was. This was the second moose I saw: the other was the "resident moose" at Cloud Pond, which comes to feed in the marshy inlet of the lake at night.
A bear in NJ, where they estimate there is one bear for every one square mile in areas they live. In two days in NJ, I saw five bears -- and these were heavily used areas, too.
A deer joins us for dinner in the Shenandoahs.
A dead deer in the Shenanadoahs that a mountain lion had apparently hung up there for later eating.
A wild turkey, which -- unlike domesticated turkeys -- can still run and fly.
A porcupine chomps on the picnic table of a shelter just short of Mount Greylock, MA. At four in the morning, everyone in the shelter was woken up by several of these prickly creatures, which apparently make routine visits to the shelter in order to knaw their teeth on the wood structures.
A racoon in New Jersey at a camping area near Mt. Sunrise.
A friendly squirell in Caledonia State Park (I think he wanted my lunch).
A bard owl in Maine, in the "poop position."
These small birds build their nests all along the trail in the southern states, sometimes scaring hikers as they dart out from the undergrowth as we approached.
A new-born inhabits a nest, with several eggs still waiting.
A humming bird getting some sugar water from a feeder at Harrison's Pierce Pond Camp, ME.