Woods Wanderer

While vacationing with Judy on the Maine coast last week, I did a little tramping around on my own. Hit a couple of the usual places, like Wells Reserve, then checked out a new trail. On the map it’s called Bridle Path, which isn’t very appealing, but I walked it anyway. Come to find out that another name for it is Mousam River Outlook Access Trail, which better reflects what the trail has to offer.

A nearly straight, wide path follows the Mousam River, just outside Kenebunkport, for a mile or so before passing into a neighborhood. The Mousam River and its salt marshes pop into view along the way. The trail crosses a few quiet tributaries that captured my attention. Not much going on there, it seemed, but I found the blend of woods and brackish waters quite alluring.

The southern Maine coast is a busy place, chock full of homes, vacation places and commercial development. But there are pockets of wildness here and there for those of us who are looking for them. An immature bald eagle perched on a dead tree along the river reminded me of that, as did the chipmunks scurrying across the trail. Wild nature, it seems, is never as far away as we think it is. And in quiet, backwater places, life goes on pretty much the same way it has for thousands of years.

Admittedly, I prefer deep woods to manicured parks and managed reserves, but wildlife, wildflowers and most other wild things don’t seem to care how far away they are from human busy-ness. This never ceases to amaze me. Migrating birds are apt to show up anywhere. Weeds growing in the cracks of an abandoned lot underscore a truth that most of us find difficult to accept, that civilization – human presence, that is – is a temporary arrangement in a world that could easily go on without us.

Tide pools scream fecundity. Salt marshes are much more subtle about it. I collected a water sample from a Mousam River backwater, looked at it under a microscope when I got home and found it to be a very busy place. Lots of microbes there. This makes me wonder how much of what’s going on around us we don’t see, or simply ignore, or shrug off. This makes me wonder how important humankind is in the greater scheme of things. Certainly not as important as we think we are.

Tags: development, Maine coast, salt marshes, wildlife, wildness

Once again Judy and I headed for the Maine coast, right before the busy summer tourist season began. This time we stayed in a quaint little cottage in Cape Porpoise only a few minutes from the ocean. We took the place for a week and were glad we did. Our leisurely days there slipped by fast.

Judy is still big into photographing birds so we spent much of our time on the coast tracking them down. First we went to Scarborough Marsh where we saw egrets, a lone sandpiper, and the surprisingly colorful glossy ibis busy feeding. A short walk in the Scarborough River Preserve later that day and another at Wells Reserve the following day educated us in the curious ways of catbirds. We encountered brown thrashers, an eastern towhee and a mockingbird, as well, along with numerous warblers flitting about. The forested spots along the coast are busy this time of year.

Judy and I visited Goose Rocks Beach a little past low tide in the middle of the week. That was the highlight of our visit, per usual. We had the place to ourselves for the most part – one of the advantages of going to Maine off season. I watched the tide roll in while Judy walked the beach, reflecting upon her first visit there 35 years ago. The place hasn’t changed much since then.

In Wells Harbor towards the end of the week, we got into the shorebirds. I found willets immensely entertaining while Judy worked hard to capture least terns dive bombing for small fish. She got a good shot of a male tern offering a minnow to a female along the shore’s edge. Ah, the mating ritual! Cormorants, eiders, and the ubiquitous gulls were hanging out there as well. The more one looks for shorebirds, it seems, the more one finds.

On the last day, I drove up to Portland and caught a ferry to Peaks Island to visit my old buddy Steve. He took a day off from his mapmaking business to walk and talk with me around the island. His wife Angela joined us for lunch, then the three of us lounged on the deck of their house for a while before I caught the ferry back to the mainland. Judy and I watched common terns feeding at Mother Beach at dusk later that day. It all happened so quickly.

I’m a woods wanderer at heart, most comfortable in mountainous wildlands far removed from the heavily developed coast. But I find the rocky coastline, sprawling beaches and the green spaces down east alluring all the same. And the ocean stretching to the distant horizon as it does certainly puts things in perspective. After all, we live on a water planet. Even as sunlight washes across the landscape for days on end, it’s good to remember that.

Tags: Atlantic Ocean, beaches, birding, Maine coast, salt marshes, walking