Matt Poole has been visitor services manager at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in Massachusetts and nearby Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge in New Hampshire since 2010. “My photographic interests and practices are extremely broad,” he says. “I’m just as happy to photograph rusty old cars and fire trucks and dilapidated buildings as wildlife. In fact, I’m much more of a landscape, flower, and botanical macro-photographer than I will ever be a wildlife photographer.”

Of the photo at the top of this page — showing a gull among sanderlings along an Atlantic Ocean beach — he says: “I find great humor in this image. I think I had originally called it something like ‘Attempting to blend in with the crowd.’ Clearly, that goal has not been achieved.”

We asked Poole to select a few more of his favorite photos from Parker River and Great Bay National Wildlife Refuges and tell us about them.