Maine Wildlife Experiences (Eastport, Penobscot: home, school, university)

[dmyankee]

How about some fun with Maine wildlife stories. Sightings, exciting finds, funny anecdotes...whatever.

I posted this easy to assemble and use Maine Moose Call in another post earlier. Once you get the hang of using it, you can have the thrill of calling in a majestic bull for some up close and personal photographs.

Traditional Mic Mac design uses a cone made of birch bark. Used well, it is very effective. This design is very effective and can be assembled in the field.


Get a #10 food can. Punch hole in bottom just enough to get a string through.

Take a long shoe string or rawhide and tie it to a large button.

Pull loose end through the hole in can.

Good luck. The moose are becoming restless and will soon be in the rut. They will often charge right in to see what the commotion is!

Wet string and with practice you run your hand along string making long or short cow calls. Use a shorter stroke to simulate a grunting bull.

Once you are good at it it is nothing to call a bull into a cut or along a body of water.

[Valley Living]

I was riding my Dual Sport Motorcycle down a dirt road once and found myself riding alongside an 800 lbs. bull moose. I could have literally spanked it! I contemplated jumping off my motorcycle and onto the moose. It would have been a ride of a lifetime.

[bigchuckie]

BACk in the mid 70's when moose acted like cows. I was about 9 when my dad had brought my brother and I to Newsourdahunk falls. We left at around 4 am we got up onto the golden road about 630. My brother and I were still half asleep. My dad stopped the car next to a Moose feeding on the side of the road. Dad said wakeup I have a surprise for you. I looked out the passenger side window and started screaming! The Moose was literally looking into the car from about 2 feet away. My dad got out of the car and the Moose still did not move so he picked up a small rock and bounced it off the mooses back
He gave us another look and walked back up over the bank. Well anyway that was my first encounter with a Moose. I wish they were still that tame

[Maine Writer]

How about being bent over to pick something up and having a bobcat six feet from your head growling at you? Scared me.

Dad: Don't run if you see a bear. Yell and scare it away.
Kids: Ok Dad.
Aunt: Don't run if you see a bear. Yell and scare it away.
Kids: Ok Auntie.
Aunt: HOLY ____ BEAR BEAR BEAR as she's running away.

[Acadianlion]

I was watching the Patriots beat up San Diego when out through the front windows in the darkness I saw the tree branch that holds the bird feeder bouncing. There was no wind. I got out of the chair and went over to the window. We have had some problems with suet feeders disappearing, and since my wife hangs them on pretty low branches, I assumed that it was raccoons who were the thiefs.

Wrong. There, five feet outside of the large front windows was a small bear pulling down the tree branches to empty the bird feeder.

This is the first bear that I have ever seen here so close to the house. Small bear, about four feet tall or so. He ran when I opened the door, but came back a little while later. I had two cats outside at the moment, and they looked at the bear with GREAT concern from a pretty big distance.

[AlisonL]

I was walking out to our back field, which used to be my riding ring, one day when this big buck deer walked out in front of me. I don't know which one of us was the most startled. Then the deer had the gall to stand in the bushes and blow at me. Needless to say I did not linger. LOL

[AlisonL]

Probably my funniest (at least my family thinks so) episode was with a bull moose.
One fall night I had listened to the late news and they had said frost. So I grabbed some old sheets and headed outside (barefoot no less). Started down the driveway and heard hooves on the driveway. I thought myself "dang horse is out". So I headed towards him. I got about 10 feet away and there I was looking at the damnest biggest bull moose I ever saw. I don't think I ever ran so fast in my life to get indoors.
I told dh and dd what happened and we could see the moose standing on our side lawn.
My daughter looks at me and says "Mom, the horse is WHITE".

[mollysmiles]

ok....I'm NOT telling the bear story again....

When I was in college and came home from break I spent a lot of time walking the dog out at Shackford's Head in Eastport. It wasn't yet a state park, and really only the locals knew about it. I could have some time to myself, and at the same time just let my dog run the path. One time the dog had run down a side path to the beach and was quite far away. I started down a path leading along the shore that would take me to where he was in the water. I heard a shuffling sound above me, and looked up. There was an eagle in the tree above me, sitting there, looking down at me. I was so surprised. I had seen many eagles, but never one this close, and I was in awe at the size and the beauty. After looking at each other for what seemed like a long time, the eagle flew away.

I had come home that weekend to tell my parents that after two and a half years at the university I had decided to change my major to Early Childhood Ed. After spending so much time in Psychology, and being half way through my junior year, it meant an extra semester of school. I was nervous about what they would say, and worried they would try to talk me out of it. At the same time though, I knew I wanted to teach. I saw the eagle almost an hour after I'd told my parents about the change. They were supportive, but didn't seem happy for me. When I saw the eagle, I did seem to lose the restlessness about the decision. It wasn't until 13 years later, when talking with a Passamaquoddy Elder that I had an understanding about that peace. We were in the middle of a conversation, when out of the blue, he looked at me and said, "you have an eagle with you". When I asked him what he meant he told me that the Passamaquoddy Tribe sees eagles as protectors of children, and if you have an eagle with you, you too are a protector of children. I was stunned, and immediately remembered the eagle at Shackford's Head. Amazing experience....

[dmyankee]

I saw at least a dozen hawks the other day riding the updraft above a major outlet this weekend.

Went to school with a Penobscot gal who rescues Ravens , another sacred bird.

[mollysmiles]

very cool!