Nesowadnehunk Lake
and the western verge of Baxter State Park, Maine
8-14 June 2018

 view of Strickland Mt across Nesowadnehunk Lake

I camped for five days on Nesowadnehunk Lake as part of my ongoing studies of boreal forest and boreal forest birds. I was particularly interested in habitat-use by the American Three-toed Woodpecker, and from my examination of eBird records, it appeared as if this site was the most productive in the eastern US for this rare woodpecker. In the 1970s and 80s, this species was a regular nesting bird at Ferd’s Bog in the central Adirondacks, but the species seems to have faded from sight in upstate New York as a breeding bird. Hence my fieldwork in northern Maine....

my lean-to camp on the Lake

The Maine location I had chosen to study the woodpecker was convenient to camping because of the presence of the Nesowadnehunk Lake Wilderness Campground, on private lands just west of Baxter State Park, home to mighty Katahdin peak. I drove to the campground over two days. The drive up to the camp totaled 900 miles (via the “back way” through Scranton and Hartford rather than the more direct but more annoying route through NYC and the Merritt Parkway).

Common Loon - one of a pair that loitered in front of my campsite

The Nesowadnehunk campground is famous among fly-fishers because the Lake has a native population of Brook Trout and regulations require fishing with fly rod and fly. Unlike most eastern lakes, Lake Nesowadnehunk (pronounced “Sow-da-hunk”) has no other game fish species in it. The campground is beautifully set on the Lake and is nestled within tracts of boreal conifer forest featuring White Spruce, Tamarack, and Balsam Fir.

vista of Katahdin from south of the Park

Looking across the lake one sees several impressive forested summits (the Brothers) beyond which one can glimpse just a sliver of the high alpine reaches of Katahdin. The conical summits of the Brothers are majestic and beckoning to the climber.

two cow Moose who visited the Lake one lazy afternoon

The woods and waters west of Katahdin form wilderness area that was visited several times by Henry David Thoreau in the 1840s and 50s, mainly by canoe. I re-read Thoreau’s Maine Woods while camped at the lake, and recognized the names of many of the landmarks he mentioned (including my lake and the stream associated with it). Even back then the area was being logged (for White Pine at that time).

Black Spruce bottomland forest

The Nesowadnehunk campground is perhaps the most isolated I have visited in North America. It is 47 miles by car from Millinocket, and most stretches of road are gravel and dirt. The campground is at the very end of an old logging road, and much of the landscape along this route has been heavily logged for timber and pulp, and continues to be logged. 

Black Duck mother with ducklings

The vast landscape west and northwest of Baxter Park is 3.5 million acres of commercial forest estate known as the North Maine Woods. It is a partnership of a number of corporations and landowners, who manage the land for timber, pulp, fishing, hunting, and wilderness recreation.

Cliff Swallows in their mud nests place under an eave of a camp building

From my comfy lean-to campsite right on the lake, I could bike west through the private timberlands or head east and get on the Baxter Park Tote Road taking me through protected forest that has not been logged in a number of decades. Using my bike, I could cover a lot of territory quickly, listening for target species, stopping to observe when I heard something interesting.

a confiding Chipping Sparrow foraging in a Tamarack in the Camp

I was, in particular, interested in the relationship between the patchy clear-felling of Black Spruce bottomlands with the continued existence of the American Three-toed Woodpecker. The eBird data seemed to indicate that the woodpecker was doing well in the patchy mix of logged-over and unlogged forest to the west of the Park. There were quite a few records of the species from right along the entrance road to the campground. This road passes through a mix of clear-felled and old growth Black Spruce.

The upshot of all of this is that I apparently visited at the very worst time of the breeding season, when adults were presumably tending eggs and were silent and recondite. In spite of considerable effort, I never encountered or heard a single three-toed woodpecker. Neither did I find the more common and related Black-backed woodpecker. In fact, woodpeckers of all kinds were scarce and mainly nonvocal at this time. I should have been here in earliest May, before the eggs had been laid and when the birds were noisily drumming and calling. My bad!

breeding plumage Ring-billed Gull--note the red eye-ring and gape

Luckily, there were other birds to focus on. I found the Fox Sparrow to be a common vocal breeder in thickets of young spruce and fir that line the Baxter Park Tote road. The musical song given by the territorial male is perhaps the loudest song of any sparrow. In spite of the striking song, the sparrow is exceedingly shy and the birds rarely allowed themselves to be seen except in flight. The Fox Sparrow is expanding its range into New England from its breeding heartland in the Great North Woods of Canada. It should be looked for soon in the Adirondacks. I also found singing male Blackpoll Warblers in lowland conifer stands—another surprise. I generally think of Blackpolls as mountaintop breeders.

glimpse of a super-shy Fox Sparrow

The wood warblers were here in numbers. For instance, a single two-hour bike-transect of 3 miles along the Baxter Tote Road from the Lake down to the Nesowadnehunk Field campground produced 13 species of warblers totaling 59 singing males—including 9 American Redstarts, and 13 Magnolia, 7 Nashville, and 6 Bay-breasted Warblers.

female Spruce Grouse

Other boreal species of interest seen during my stay include Spruce Grouse (4 encounters), Boreal Chickadee (2 encounters), and Olive-sided Flycatcher (2 encounters).

another female Spruce Grouse

I surveyed a patch of old growth bottomland Black Spruce—this unusual habitat is prime pulpwood forest and thus largely removed from the area. This very Spartan habitat, with the spongy Sphagnum-mossy forest floor and the spindly spruce (mainly 60 feet tall and 5-6 inches in diameter) supported a rather impoverished boreal bird fauna: Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Blue-headed Vireo, Winter Wren, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Swainson’s Thrush, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Canada Warbler, Nashville Warbler, White-throated Sparrow, and Dark-eyed Junco.

retreating Snowshoe Hare showing its big white feet

Snowshoe Hare were abundant and tame, especially around the campground. Many were infested with ticks.

Boreal Chickadee

This is also big Moose country, and a pair of Moose cows wandered along the Lake by the campground one afternoon, entertaining many of the campers.

The two cow Moose on the dam at the base of the Lake

On two nights the temperature dropped below freezing, but the days were, surprisingly, sunny and warm, and the mosquitoes and black flies were not very annoying.

Nesowadnehunk Lake is a great base of operations for hiking, biking, mountain-climbing, fly-fishing, and birding, in spite of its considerable isolation. Presumably early May would be the best time to hunt for the resident boreal species, whereas early June will be best for the Neotropical songbird migrants.