Fans Of The Bangor City Forest Should Follow This Facebook Page!

I never really thought of myself as a nature boy necessarily, but I do love spending a bunch of time in the woods when I can. I'm no serious hiker or anything. I just love a good walk, with some nice scenery to enjoy while I do it. Since moving back from southern Maine, I've kinda fallen in love with the Bangor City Forest, and in particular the Orono Bog Boardwalk. There's nothing quite so vast and awesome within city limits in Portland, so I really appreciate this wooded oasis whenever possible.

A while back I wrote about an app called Seek, that helps identify plants and small animals in a similar way to a music app like Shazam recognizes songs. You just take a photo of the plant through the app, and it will tell you what it is. It's pretty cool. Well, did you know there's also an entire Facebook page devoted to identifying plants and animals that are just within the City Forest? There is!

Flora and Fauna of the City Forest is a page dedicated to all the cool things you'll find there. Like earlier, I'm no avid bird watcher, salamander seeker or frog finder, but I do get curious enough to search things out on the internet, or pay more attention to the signs along the trail. And now, I can do a little research before I even hit the trail at all.

The page is run by Maine Master Naturalist Clare Dellwo Cole. Here's a nit about Cole's background....

....Clare is a 2014 graduate of the Maine Master Naturalist program, an intense 12-month program that "trains citizen-naturalist volunteers to share their knowledge, insights and enthusiasm about Maine’s varied natural communities to a broad array of individuals

So far, she has currently identified over 250 different species of wildflowers and flowering plants, and the page has been updated as recently as June 2nd. So there are certainly all kinds of cool things to see.

If you are a big, giant fan of nature, there are so many thing to see on this page. Rare flowers, shy animals, and stuff you probably haven't even noticed around you on the trails. So join up, and start enjoying local nature right from your couch, and then hit the trail and say hello to Mother Nature's awesomeness.