Watching a cow and calf on East Musquash Lake

We take the boat to East Musquash Lake in Tospfield for its first ride of the year. Steve backs the trailer in, starts the motor and lets it run a few minutes before we take the boat off. If it doesn’t start we don’t have a free-floating boat to drag onto the trailer.

It took a few minutes and some blue smoke but the motor started. I walked into the water to get the rope, surprised at how warm, or more like how not-freezing, the water is, and hung onto the boat while Steve parked the truck and trailer. We had a nice ride around the lake and the motor ran just fine.

Yesterday’s ride wasn’t as eventful as last year’s when we saw the fawn, but we did see wildlife. We must have gotten too close to a loon’s nest. We didn’t see it but the loon gave us a couple of warnings; one as we must have been approaching the nest and one as we were leaving. From the opposite side of the lake I spotted a large, dark mass. “Is that a moose,” I asked, pointing to the other side.

We were never close to the moose. I zoomed out to 1200 mm to get these photos. I’ve cropped and edited them to make them somewhat acceptable to share. They’re not great quality because not bothering the moose is more important than great photos. I was using the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS.

In spite of not getting close, we did disturb them. The cow took no chances with the calf’s safety and went back into the woods. We seldom get to see calves so this was a nice treat.

There are a few more pictures on my personal blog. I took almost 100 pictures, most of them blurred or completely missed the moose because of the movement of the boat.

 

 

Robin Follette

About Robin Follette

Maine Press Association award winner, 2013. Robin's Outdoors, Bangor Daily News, third place in Sports blogs. I grew up with a fishing pole in my hand and have always loved the outdoors. From gardening to hunting and fishing, kayaking, camping, hiking and foraging, most of my time is spent outdoors. I teach outdoor skills as a volunteer instructor for Hooked On Fishing - Not On Drugs and Becoming an Outdoors-Woman. Pro-staff at The Limb Grip. My personal blog is here. I'm currently working on my first book, a collection of short stories based on my outdoors experiences.