Hike takes you to where wild things are

One of the reasons I hike is for the chance to see wildlife. As far as an excuse to go hiking, it ranks right up there with walking through lush forests of big trees and standing on top of mountains. I use all sorts of methods to improve my chances of observing creatures in their own surroundings. I visit places animals frequent, I try to observe their behavior and hide my own presence using natural objects. Some of these techniques I borrowed from relatives who hunt, others I happened upon on my own frequent trips to places where I previously encountered wildlife.

The first rule of finding creatures to observe seems obvious. You have to visit places where animals are usually seen. Discovering where that is requires a little knowledge of habitat that’s specific to the animals you want to see. Generally all animals, including humans, are dependent on two things, food and water. If you can find their food and water sources, then sometimes you’ll find the animals that use them.

So, although the Knife Edge on Katahdin is spectacular, it’s pretty unlikely you’ll see a beaver crawling across the ridge. However, any pond in Baxter Park with a stream outlet suitable for damming is likely to have a beaver family.

You don’t have to be a wildlife biologist or expert tracker to learn which animals prefer which types of food sources. Moose and deer, for instance, leave evidence of what food they like, if you know where to look. The next time you’re walking through bushes that look like they had their tops chewed off, it’s probably because a deer or moose passed through and browsed the top of striped maples.

Then when you look around on the ground, you might see a trail of teardrop-shaped hoof prints that lead off into the trees. Now, seeing tracks hardly counts as an actual animal sighting, but it can give you an idea of where to look during a return visit.

But because Maine’s spruce-fir boreal forest is so thick, sometimes a set of footprints is all you’ll see. I call it resetting of goals. I may be setting out to see animals, but I’ll settle for an abandoned beaver lodge, for example, to see where the beavers have lived. Sometimes though, tracks and former stomping grounds aren’t enough to satisfy my animal sighting needs.

Then I hike to a well-known summer animal hangout, a stream. Almost all animals drink from streams, even moles. Birds of prey, such as hawks, know this and use it to their advantage. If you have enough time to wait streamside, you can encounter everything from fisher to fox, raccoon to moose. The most animal sightings I’ve had have been near a stream.

The noise of water falling in a stream also masks the sound of your presence, the accidental twig snap or the rustle of a nylon windbreaker that gives you away to animals, such as deer, that will not make themselves visible if they know you’re there.

Streams aren’t the only places to see creatures. Lakes and ponds also supply animals with a water source and if you’re there, you’ll see them. Moose are usually found in ponds in midsummer, for both food at the bottom of the pond and water to cool their huge bulk.

I’ve also seen animals in the worst weather. Animals look for protection from the elements just like humans. Until they find it, you can find them, sort of between places of protection. When the sky turns dark and rain starts pouring from it, then I put on the rain gear and head down the trail to see if anything got caught in it before it could find cover. The sound of rain acts like stream sounds in masking my presence. Rain reduces visibility to the animals too, making it harder for them to see me. I observed a pine marten, the only one I’ve ever seen, on one of the worst weather days I’ve ever been in. It had no idea what I was, judging from the way it craned its neck to watch as I passed by the tree in which it was resting.

Not every hike yields a wildlife sighting. I try to adjust my hopes on what I might see to the time of year and particularly to the place I’m hiking. In midsummer I hope to see a spruce grouse and almost full-grown chicks still with the mother if I’m in the forest.

On mountaintops, I look for Canada jays. If I’m near a pond I hope to see moose in the late afternoon or early evening as they leave the woods to eat from the bottom of the pond and escape the heat. Wherever I hike, I look for the telltale signs of animal presence in the vicinity and sometimes that has to be good enough.

Brad Viles is an avid hiker and Appalachian Trail maintainer.