Bird Camping in the North Maine Woods

Bird Camping in the North Maine Woods

Feeling Thoreauesque - actually a need to escape the current state of affairs - I resolved to challenge myself to a solo expedition to Baxter State Park in Maine.  Ostensibly for birds and photography, I think I was really yearning to get away from trucks and motorcycles, planes and helicopters, newspapers and television news, and maybe even people, even if just for a day or two. 

On the way to my friend’s home about 3 hours south of Baxter, I stopped in Massachusetts to pick up an amazingly easy life-bird: a Trumpeter Swan.  Sitting exactly where the latest eBird report had it, all I had to do was pull over and stick the lens out the window.  

Trumpeter Swan

Trumpeter Swans normally range from the Great Lakes through parts of northwest US and Western Canada up into Alaska.  They occasionally roam or wander to the East Coast but I had never had occasion to track one down.

Hoping this was a positive omen, I pushed on planning to stop for a Little Egret (a European egret quite rarely found on this side of the Atlantic) hanging out in Scarborough Maine along the coast.  Regrettably, no fewer than three dead stop traffic jams scotched that plan if I wanted to reach Unity Maine in time for cocktail hour and supper.  I’ll try on the way home instead.

After a pleasant evening with friends I lit out for the north early the next morning and birded my way into Baxter, hitting some possible Three-toed and Black-backed Woodpecker spots, unsuccessfully, along the North Woods roads that service the vast commercial timber forests.  This road is not for the faint of heart.  Although I was fortunate that the logging activity and associated truck traffic was low, the Golden Road (it is anything but) was still an adventure.  Really just a linear corridor of potholes and washboard ribbing interspersed with a couple hundred yards of pavement every few miles, the Golden Road is the main route to the logging areas of the North Woods.

I took the back way into Baxter up Baxter Park Road, another misnomer as it was only metaphorically a “road”, more like a steep, dried up stream bed.  Spotting a lump in the path, I rattled off a dozen or so shutter clicks of what I thought was a Spruce Grouse.  A close look later turned it into a Ruffed Grouse, still a nice bird to see and photograph but not the North Woods specialty I hoped for.

Ruffed Grouse

Thankfully, entering the Park proper put me on a real paved and maintained road.  Stopping at the welcome center, I asked about the unpronounceable place I was heading for: Nesowadnehunk Field Campground.  I was told I had quite a trip remaining and in fact it was almost another hour before reaching the site.  Baxter is a big place, but the drive was certainly pleasant through forests, along lakes, and past views of Mount Katadhin, complete with patches of snow still in late June.  

Mount Katadhin

Henry Thoreau visited the Katahdin area twice (he spelled it Ktaadn), and though circumstances prevented him from reaching the summit both trips, he provides his typically detailed description of the effort and the natural wonders he found on the way in his journals.  Scaling Katahdin is probably beyond likelihood for me at this stage of the game, but I consider close proximity an achievement of sorts.

When Thoreau visited Katadhin in 1846 he described “a wholly uninhabited wilderness, stretching to Canada: no horses, no cows, no vehicles—nothing but river and evergreen woods.”  I found my campground perhaps not quite so unblemished, but no planes, no motorcycles, no lawnmowers, no dogs and plenty of river and evergreen woods.  Relatively speaking, I felt as remote as Thoreau did. 

I certainly found some solitude: Nesowadnehunk (pronounced, I learned after several inquiries and much practicing, nesOHwednunk) Field Campground had one occupant - me - when I arrived.  A part time ranger departed before dusk and I was left with only bird song, deer flies, and mosquitos for company. 

Nesowadnehunk, by the way, is probably a Penobscot Indian word meaning “may the biting flies drive the white man off our land.”  On Thoreau’s first trip he noted “I was fortunate also in the season of the year, for in the summer myriads of black flies, mosquitoes, and midges, or, as the Indians call them, ‘no‐ see‐ums,’ make travelling in the woods almost impossible; but now their reign was nearly over.”  His second trip was not so benign, insectwise:  “Our best nights were those when it rained the hardest, on account of the mosquitoes.”  Of course, he did not have Cutter’s Deep Woods, a ¼ inch layer of which actually prevented the loss of much blood for me.  

I find myself taking on a crotchety “get off my lawn” persona these days as I complain about the constant interruptions that diminish the enjoyment of nature: the delivery truck that roars by just as you lock your lens onto a bird; the helicopter that swoops in the instant you start your recording of a thrush; the bystander who asks “whatcha looking at, birds?” while you try to coax a chip into revealing itself.  None of these distractions arose at Nesowadnehunk for the first few hours, leaving a feeling of accomplishment even beyond that of finding and photographing “good” birds.  Despite my doctor’s criticism, after the fact, about travelling alone in an area with no cell service, that too I considered an achievement. 

Even protected from most fly bites, the constant swarm about my head complicated camp set up, but I pitched my tent and then headed up Park Tote Road for some evening birding.  I was rewarded with another lump in the dirt road, this time a real Spruce Grouse hen brooding her chicks on the road, as apparently they are wont to do.

Spruce Grouse

Rain drove me into the tent at about 8, but it was clear at about 2 AM when nature called and rewarded me with the Milky Way hanging overhead.  Sunrise was sublime and birds were actively gathering breakfast for new broods. 

Nesowadnehunk Field Campground

A pair of White-throated Sparrows - one white-striped and one tan-striped - gleaned moth worms and other insects from a spruce tree.  According to Birds of North America Online (Cornell Lab of Ornithology), "These differences in plumage and karyotype are maintained by negative assortative (disassortative) mating – each morph mates with its opposite." 

White-throated Sparrow - White-striped Morph

White-throated Sparrow - Tan-striped Morph

I spent a few hours along the Tote Road, no luck with Black-backed Woodpeckers but enjoyable views and a few photos of some North Woods specialties.

Boreal Chickadee

                                                      Red-breasted Nuthatch

I was pretty well spent by noon, after 8 hours of hiking, birding, photography, and insect fighting.  One last feeding of the mosquitos and deer flies as I broke camp and packed the car, and a leisurely 2 ½ hour ride back to Unity, once again in time for cocktails and supper.

Thoreau wrote about his visit to the Katadhin area:

“I suspect that, if you should go to the end of the world, you would find somebody there going farther, as if just starting for home at sundown, and having a last word before he drove off.”  

It does feel like the end of the world here, at least at times, but regrettably you know the real world is always only a few miles away.  In a way, missing out on Black-backed Woodpeckers might be a good thing, because it will likely bring me back to Baxter.