Maine bird photographs by Patti Forster, a local birder and photographer, will be on view Thursday, Jan. 8, through March 3 at Gibbs Library, 40 Old Union Road, in Washington.

Forster has been sharing her bird photographs with family and friends across the U.S. since she moved to Maine from California seven years ago, but this is her first exhibit. Her bird photographs capture fleeting moments with our feathered neighbors, an interesting tilt of the head or a sparkle in the eye, and create a lesson in ornithology with photographs of more than a dozen different species easily observable in this state like the common house sparrow and the eagle, as well as a few a little harder to find like the great gray owl or the glossy ibis.

It took Forster four years to spot and capture her photo of the glossy ibis, and it was by accident. She said, “I had been trying to spot this bird, the glossy ibis. This quest started four years ago, but whenever I would go to a marsh, I never saw one. One day I went to the Scarborough Marsh south of Portland in the morning on the way to a meeting and still didn’t see the glossy ibis. On my way home, I drove by the same marsh again and decided to turn back around to try to get a few pictures of the egrets I saw close to the road. I got a few good shots of the snowy egret, a smaller one (2 feet tall with a black bill). Then, I saw a great egret (orange bill and 3 feet tall) at a distance. I zoomed in, focused, took the shot, and wondered what the brown thing was in the corner of the picture. It was a glossy ibis,” according to a news release from the library.

Library hours are 4-7 p.m. Monday, 9 a.m.-noon and 4-7 p.m. Tuesday, 3-6  Wednesday and Thursday, and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

For more information, call 845-2663 or visit gibbslibrary.org.