LETTER FROM BOBOLINK FARM
MOOSE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
By Barbara Tatham Johnson
The sight of the carcass of a bull moose trussed to a flatbed trailer towed
by a small dump truck jolted me last month as I returned from a trip north
of Bangor. I estimated that with eight points on his antlers, this animal
had lived at least four years, weighed over a thousand pounds, and qualified
for the common description of a moose—“as big as a horse.” A bull moose
full grown is as big as a big horse. Moose hunting season is short, two
weeks, and limited to northern Maine.
There is no moose hunt in central Maine where I live, and I like it that
way. I want the moose I meet in my boggy woods and meadow to stay around. I
love close encounters with the neighborhood moose.
I never set out to find moose, but when black fly season is in full swing,
moose seek relief in the breeze blowing across the meadow and the meadow
pond. Sightings then are memorable.
Last summer, from the bedroom window I saw the dark bulk of a moose striding
along the meadow edge toward the house. I saw with the aid of binoculars a
young bull moose carrying four points on his antlers. He moved deceptively
fast, his strides covering more distance than his gangliness seemed to
allow. Thoreau wrote in The Maine Woods of being told that moose “can step
over a five-foot gate in their ordinary walk.”
I knew I must hustle to grab the camera. This moose was heading on a direct
trajectory for the kitchen garden, and my appearance on the back porch might
be enough to steer him between the garden and the big bed of gladioli by
the chicken coop.
I had time to point and click the shutter three times before the moose
strode several hundred feet to the driveway, paused, and struck off across
the meadow to the woods. As he passed, I noticed he affected the manner of a
sedate gentleman on his way to the gent’s room slightly ruffled by the
appearance of a woman.
This May at dusk I heard a faint hermit thrush melody from the woods. I
headed across the meadow to the path that leads to a small hemlock grove
where the thrush sing morning and evening in spring.
I had barely entered the woods when the crashing hustle of a large animal
surprised and startled me until I realized this was a large cow moose trying
to get away from me as fast as I moved in the opposite direction. She
paralleled my path a short distance until she reached my neighbor’s
Christmas tree clearing where she turned and craned her neck to look at me
over the six-foot treetops. With her big snout and large ears at nearly
right angles to her head, I was reminded of Thoreau's description of moose
resembling “great frightened rabbits, with their long ears and
half-inquisitive, half-frightened looks.” I paused, reassured by the thick
growth between us, to chuckle at her nosiness then acknowledged her great
bulk and moved away toward the thrush song drifting from the west woods.
I can linger long to hear hermit thrush fluting in early spring at dusk when
it is cool enough to keep the first mosquitoes down and well before the
black flies emerge. This was an evening not quite that cool or early, and I
left the solo singer to return to the house after listening a very short
while.
I entered the meadow from a path 200 yards from the place where I entered
the woods and stopped in my tracks. Not twenty feet away, a moose stood
gazing at me. This could not be the moose I had kept company with such a
short while ago. Surely, she did not have the inclination, let alone the
time, to circle out in the woods to greet me as I turned homeward. No. This
was a young bull moose with antler buttons just protruding in their annual
growth. He seemed more puzzled and as surprised as I was. I admired his deep
brown coat and grayish legs, yet he looked very big. I did not hesitate to
hurry away across the meadow toward the pond and house beyond. He came right
along with me. I did not feel threatened, but he was big. I broke into a
trot. He stepped right along and to my relief stopped when he reached the
pond that I had skirted. He waded in, all interest in me overcome by the
need to relieve bug bites. In the gloaming I watched as he left the pond to
join a small group of Canada geese grazing the meadow grasses. He dropped to
his knees to reach the short growth, grazing beside the geese until they
took flight for the night safety of the town lake. The moose stayed at the
edge of the meadow until I could barely see him in the darkness. The breeze
had dropped, and he entered the woods at about the place where I had
encountered the cow moose.
A wildlife biologist described the moose as the “least handsome yet most
majestic of North American mammals.” Moose are my good neighbors in this
part of rural Maine. I respect their need for space and solitude as they go
about their lives. Sharing a small part of the natural world with such
robust giants gives me a deep appreciation for the complexity of nature. We
cross the paths of other living creatures at times we least expect. I
appreciate the pestering black flies and mosquitoes that drive the moose
into
the open for our occasional meetings.
