Purple Finch
New Hampshire’s state bird is a stout forest finch whose males look washed in raspberry and whose movements follow shifting seed crops.
Maine, United States: places and wildlife — page 2
Browse the published Explore collection for Maine, United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
Atlantic Puffin
Atlantic puffins returned to historic Maine nesting islands through decades of seabird restoration, social attraction, and careful colony protection.
Katahdin Arctic Butterfly
This cold-adapted butterfly survives on Katahdin’s alpine tableland, isolated from related arctics by forest and thousands of years of climate change.
Furbish’s Lousewort
Rediscovered after decades of presumed extinction, this rare wildflower lives only on naturally eroding banks of the upper Saint John River.
American Black Bear
America’s most widespread bear is often easier to recognize by tracks, clawed logs, and overturned stones than by a direct sighting.
Moose
Long legs, a heavy overhanging muzzle, and an appetite for twigs and aquatic plants make the moose unmistakably built for northern country.
Common Bottlenose Dolphin
A curved dorsal fin, robust gray body, and short bottle-shaped beak mark a dolphin that finds prey through both vision and echolocation.
Humpback Whale
Knobbed head, extraordinarily long flippers, and deeply notched tail flukes identify a whale that migrates between feeding and breeding seas.
Harbor Seal
Round head, spotted coat, and V-shaped nostrils distinguish the true seal most regularly seen around Rhode Island.
Black-capped Chickadee
Black cap, white cheeks, small bib, and a curious approach make this year-round northern songbird a foundational backyard identification.
Common Raven
Heavy bill, shaggy throat, and wedge-shaped tail separate the raven from crows as it works cliffs, tundra, forests, and towns.
Ruffed Grouse
Mottled bark-colored plumage, a dark tail band, and the male’s accelerating wing-drumming suit dense young forest better than open lawn.
Hermit Thrush
Spotted breast, plain face, and a reddish tail contrasting with a browner back identify the thrush behind one of Vermont’s clearest woodland songs.
Osprey
Dark eye stripe, kinked long wings, and reversible outer toes identify the fish specialist nesting beside Oregon waters.
Largemouth Bass
A jaw extending behind the eye, deep body, and dark side stripe separate largemouth bass from their smaller-mouthed relatives.
Bluegill
A deep compressed body, dark ear flap, and blue-green cheek identify a widespread sunfish that rewards close looking.
Northern Pike
Duckbill snout, rear-set fins, and pale bean-shaped spots identify the pike waiting almost motionless beside cover.
Weakfish
A slender silver body, oblique spots, yellowish fins, and drumming muscles identify this estuarine member of the drum family.
Monarch Butterfly
Orange wings with heavy black veins identify a migrant whose caterpillars can eat only milkweeds and whose journey outlasts any one summer adult.
Common Green Darner
Large size, bright green thorax, and a dark bull’s-eye on the forehead help identify a darner capable of continental movement.
Black Swallowtail
Paired rows of yellow spots and an orange-centered hindwing eye distinguish a butterfly whose striped caterpillar feeds on carrots’ wild relatives.
Say’s Firefly
A dark firefly with pale margins and an angular shield pattern, Say’s firefly turns summer dusk into species-specific communication.
Large-flowered Trillium
Three broad leaves, three white petals, and a flower held above a single whorl mark Ohio’s woodland wildflower.
Common Milkweed
Opposite broad leaves, milky sap, round pink flower clusters, and warty pods identify a plant central to monarch development.
Mountain Laurel
Glossy evergreen leaves and clustered pink-white cups patterned with ten pockets identify Connecticut’s state flower.
Northern Red Oak
Bristle-tipped leaf lobes, shallow-striped bark, and broad acorns distinguish New Jersey’s state tree from rounded-lobed white oaks.
Tulip Tree
Four-lobed leaves with a notched flat tip and green-orange tulip-like flowers identify one of eastern North America’s tallest hardwoods.
Eastern Hemlock
Flat short needles with pale undersides, tiny hanging cones, and drooping twig tips identify Pennsylvania’s state tree.
Red Maple
Red buds, flowers, leaf stalks, and paired winged seeds recur across the year on Rhode Island’s adaptable state tree.
Eastern White Pine
Long flexible needles grouped in fives, slender cones, and layered horizontal branches identify the eastern white pine.
Portland Museum of Art
The collection gives Winslow Homer, Marsden Hartley, and the Wyeth family room to converse with European, American, and contemporary work.
Farnsworth Art Museum
Wyeth holdings, modernists, folk art, and living Maine artists turn regional identity into a broad artistic argument rather than a souvenir view.
Maine Maritime Museum
A 20-acre Kennebec River campus combines shipbuilding tools, historic buildings, full-scale sculpture, lighthouse interpretation, and waterborne excursions.
Colby College Museum of Art
The museum is especially strong in American modernism, works on paper, and art connected to Maine, while campus installations and changing projects keep the visit from feeling sealed inside galleries.
Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Ancient Mediterranean objects, European painting, American art, and contemporary exhibitions support unusually close comparison in a compact museum.
Maine State Museum
The collections span archaeology, industry, natural history, domestic life, and the labor that shaped Maine.
Abbe Museum
The museum centers Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy voices through archaeology, art, language, and living cultural practice.
Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine
A makerspace, water play, a camera obscura, small-animal interpretation, and an active children’s theater encourage sustained experimentation rather than passive display.
Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Co. & Museum
Historic locomotives, coaches, artifacts, and a waterfront train ride explain why unusually narrow railways once connected rural Maine communities and industries.
Seashore Trolley Museum
Streetcars, interurbans, buses, restoration shops, and a demonstration railway show how public transit shaped cities before automobile dominance.
Owls Head Transportation Museum
Aircraft, automobiles, motorcycles, engines, and bicycles are interpreted as functioning systems rather than polished shells.
Maine Mineral & Gem Museum
Exceptional local minerals, gemstones, mining history, and extraterrestrial material move from the state’s pegmatites to planetary science.
Penobscot Marine Museum
Historic buildings, marine paintings, photography, tools, vessels, and domestic objects reveal how Penobscot Bay communities participated in worldwide commerce.
Center for Maine Contemporary Art
Changing exhibitions give artists room for installation, abstraction, social inquiry, and new media without pretending there is one Maine style.
Maine Discovery Museum
Nature, anatomy, engineering, art, play, and Maine environments are built for touching, climbing, making, and conversation.
Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum
Historic expedition records, Inuit art, clothing, tools, photography, and environmental research show both the ambitions and limits of southern exploration narratives.
Ogunquit Museum of American Art
A compact collection of modern and contemporary American art is joined to sculpture gardens and an ocean-facing site.
Hudson Museum
Wabanaki material culture, archaeological holdings, and global collections are presented as records of living communities and changing museum practice.