August 6-9, 2009
Thursday: As we headed north, we found this "sign" that this trip was going to be good. In case you can't see it, the license plate on this car says "CANNON", and in the background, you can see Cannon Mountain. This was way too much of a coincidence for us. It must be fate.
When we got to Errol, we stopped in at L. L. Coat's to see if there was anything we needed. Tim bought more worms. Then we headed down to the General Store for lunch. Wonderful hot sandwiches, packed to go for the river. We put the canoe in the water at the Errol boat launch and had the most wonderful, leisurely paddle to Lake Umbagog that we've ever had. Not much wind. The sun was out. No storm chasing us like there usually is. We even floated for awhile and ate our lunch before it got cold. This eagle greeted us on the river. When we got to our campsite, we were very surprised to see that the eagles' nest that we had watched for years was totally gone. Did it get knocked down by a storm? We have no idea. The eagles were still around (with fledglings) so they must have rebuilt somewhere close by.
We had a nice afternoon around camp. We collected and cut firewood, fished, scoped out the blueberry bushes (in prep for morning oatmeal). We had some nice appetizers of cheese and crackers around 4:30pm while the sun was still high.
These clouds are like monsters stomping across the sky
Around 6:30pm, we headed out to Leonard Pond to look for moose. Didn't spot any, but we each caught a pickerel. Tim's was bigger, and Val's took a bite out of Tim's hand, so she didn't want to hold it for pictures. Overall count for the day was Tim 10 (7 perch, 2 bass, 1 pickerel) and Valerie 2 (1 perch, 1 pickerel). The weather was in and out of clouds all day, and the water was nicely warm. On our bird tally, we saw a great blue heron, nighthawk, several goldeneyes and multiple eagles.
We had a good fire long into the evening. Dinner consisted of chicken sausage sandwiches, couscous salad, green beans, yellow squash and s'mores. It was not as cold as predicted that night. It was cloudy when we went to bed, but cleared off as the night progressed. We were up a couple times during the night. This picture was about 5AM, when Valerie sent Tim out of the tent to hunt down whatever was rustling the recyclables. Tim never found anything bigger than a mouse, but this picture was worth getting out of bed.
Friday: we woke up late - after 7am. Breakfast was oatmeal/granola with blueberries, tea and coffee. The clouds came in quickly. We went out to fish after breakfast and caught a few perch. We got far enough away from camp that of course the rain had to start. We had our gore-tex jackets with us in the canoe, but not the pants because it was so warm. The rain came down so hard that it was pounding against us and filling the boat. We paddled like crazy to get back to camp, changed clothes and dumped the canoe. The rain went back and forth between drizzle and downpour throughout the morning. We tried to keep a fire going, but eventually abandoned it and went under our tarp (where the picnic table was). We heard one giant clap of thunder and then voices from the other side of our island. I ran over and found 4 canoeists who had just made it across the open water of the lake. It's several miles across with no place to hide, so they arrived at just the right time. Irene, Gail, Denise and Susan were from Burlington, VT. They were doing about a 40-mile section of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail. They sat with us under our tarp until the thunderstorm passed, then they headed off up the Androscoggin river towards town. It was nice chatting with them.
Once we could rebuild the fire, we had hot dogs and cup-o-soup for lunch, with tea and cocoa. In the afternoon, we fished in-between the rain but the "catching" part was sporadic. One interesting development, Tim caught two small-mouthed bass on the same lure at the same time. They were each about 10 inches. It was a double-treble lure, and he caught one on each hook. We spent more time that afternoon filtering water and collecting firewood. While we were out fishing, the park service delivered a new picnic table to our site - and cut up the old one with a chain saw to carry it off. Although we appreciated the new table, they trashed some of our gear which had been sitting on the original table when we left camp. Finally, as the evening progressed, the weather cleared off and the wind picked up. We ate peanuts from the shells as appetizers. The weather radio says that it should be all clear tonight and cold. Low 40's.
This is our HHSS - human-habituated song sparrow. He ate all our scraps around camp.
Great Blue Heron and his lunch - baby perch.
Tim's third perch of the day. This one was hors d'ouerve sized. Valerie had a couple also.
Cool space ship cloud, the weather clears and we have a nice sunset.
Saturday: Got up early to do some more fishing - didn't even eat breakfast. The water was like glass with just a little fog. Still no moose. These loons were hanging close together. We think it's because the eagle was perched in a giant pine tree over their heads. They were making an awful racket (not the beautiful haunting call that we associated with them).
Val's big bass
Eagle is watching those loons...
Not sure what this is... I think it's a member of the flycatcher family.
Yellow warbler
Female hairy woodpecker
More eagle pics
Eastern Phoebe
Just a view out across the marsh
Red-eyed Vireo
There was lots of boat traffic today. Fishing from the canoe was difficult due to the high winds. We took a nature-watching ride around what-we-call "Eagle Island". We'd never been out there before because it had always been marked off for no traffic due to the nest. Since the nest is gone, they took down the barriers. Saw several ducks with their babies, eastern kingbirds, kingfishers, flycatchers and Canada geese. Mid-afternoon, we took a dip in the lake. It's nice to clean off after 3 days.
This is the island where we camp. The eagle is sitting in the left-most of the tall pines. The first picture shows his position relative to camp. The second picture is a close-up of him.
This osprey was feeling daring, sitting in the dead tree that is really the property of the eagle family.
Sunday:
We easily loaded up the canoe in the morning and headed out. It was a really nice
Eastern Kingbirds
Kingfisher
Passing through "Sweat Meadows" on our way home
This we cannot make any sense of. This is two loons. They are either attempting to kill each other or else one half of them is very intent on mating. We've never seen anything like this from them before. It was vicious. Eventually one of them got away and literally RAN across the top of the water. The other chased. Tim kept the boat going forward so that Valerie would not intervene or cry over the fate of the lesser loon.
Driving home, we stopped again at the Errol General Store and bought lunch. Steak & Cheese subs. These are to die for. We recommend that everyone passing through Errol stop here for lunch (or drive out of your way for it).