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The view from Chuck Homler’s third-floor condo, above, led him to start shooting video so he could identify the birds and animals he saw around the Saco River and the mills.

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A chipmunk gets curious.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Chuck Homler uses a monocular telescope to view wildlife on Saco Island and surrounding habitat from near Saco’s train station. His YouTube videos depict a range of species that are drawn to the industrial district: some for its abundance of cover, others for the open water and high perches.

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Homler, while tracking a yellow warbler by its sound, happened upon this raccoon.

enlarge Wildlife photos by Chuck Homler

Chuck Homler says he tracked down this yellow warbler at Saco Island last spring by listening to its song.

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A Cooper’s hawk is caught eating a pigeon in the parking lot near Homler’s condo.

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A Black-crowned Night Heron at Saco Island becomes a part of Chuck Homler’s wildlife photography collection.

On Saco Island, the towering, century-old red brick mill complex dominates the view at first, along with the smokestack rising above the Maine Energy Recovery Co. trash-to-energy plant. A new, bright-white wind turbine chuffs slowly in the breeze.

What Chuck Homler sees in this gentrifying industrial district, though, is a nesting area, a hunting ground and acres of protected shelter for all manner of wildlife.

"It`s amazing what`s out there," said Homler, who lives in a condominium on Saco Island. For the past few years, he has been posting YouTube videos of bald eagles, fox kits, porcupines, groundhogs, Cooper`s hawks, peregrine falcons and other wildlife drawn to this unlikely urban jungle.

"In general, any time you are near a major river, you are going to attract a lot of wildlife, and the elevated buildings are attractive to birds of prey," said Eric Hynes, staff naturalist for the Maine Audubon Society. "We may think of it as a dilapidated mill area, but to wildlife it's all shelter."

Hynes, who is familiar with Homler's videos of wildlife on Saco Island, said many times people don't see the animals around them simply because they aren't looking for them.

"Chuck's eye has become open to the world around him," Hynes said. "His awareness has been raised, and for most humans, they don't see what's around them. There's so much that's in your own backyard."

Armed with a basic video camera that has a pretty good zoom lens, Homler has been able to capture images of dozens of species and post them to YouTube under the nom de Internet of "needsmoreritalin."

Homler, 33, never intended to become a backyard naturalist. He moved from rural New Jersey to Maine three years ago, and after buying his condo, which has views of the Saco River and the mills, he kept spotting unusual birds and animals. He started shooting video to help him identify the animals.

"When I first got here, I saw these birds, and I`d never seen anything like them. They were black and white, with long bills, and they were diving in the river. It took me a week to discover they were common mergansers," a variety of fish-eating duck, Homler said, recalling his first brush with local wildlife.

Neighbor Michael Whitmore, who works at the Run of the Mill brew pub on Saco Island, said he's been spotting more wildlife since Homler started pointing out all the raptors and animals in the area.

"It's extremely cool, and it's crazy, too, because this is basically an industrial area around here," said Whitmore, who is 24 years old. "Once we were right outside the building, and there was the falcon, right in the tree above us, not 10 feet away."

Whitmore, who grew up in Biddeford and would occasionally spot a moose in his rural backyard, said he didn`t expect to find so much wildlife on an island amid two major downtown areas.

Saco Island has long been home to industrial tenants. More-recent development has added a condo complex, a deli, a brew pub and white-collar tenants ranging from a law firm to the local chamber of commerce. An enormous wind turbine was erected last year, and an Amtrak station opened just last week.

But there are still whole sections of the island that remain empty, with large grassy areas and rubble near vacant mill buildings. The rubble and high grasses are perfect cover for ground animals, while birds are drawn by the open water and high perches atop buildings.

Homler has even shot video of raptors perched atop the blade of the wind turbine on a still day, when it was not rotating.

"It's pretty cool the way nature is just tucked away in there," Whitmore said.

Sometimes he hears the animals before he sees them, Homler said. "Once I heard this telltale hawk screech, and I look up and there's this red-tailed hawk, and it looked like it had a pigeon, and above was this peregrine falcon swooping in. It was unbelievable," he said.

The peregrines...