BANGOR METRO • August 3, 2021
My wife had one request for her birthday this year, to see a Canada lynx. Sandi had never seen one, whereas I had encountered two over the last decade. It was my task to get her one. Outwardly, I smiled. Inwardly, I groaned. A Canada lynx is not something you can just order online. They hunt mostly at night, in areas of inaccessibly deep snow. The notion that I could produce one as a birthday present was far-fetched. Still, we were going to be in lynx country often during the early months of 2021 as volunteers for the Maine Bird Atlas project. In March, I remembered one road that seemed particularly promising. On our first walk of the day, we rounded a corner and immediately noticed something large and tawny high in a spruce. A cat! For 10 minutes, the lynx watched us watch him, interspersed with a few brief catnaps — him, not us. That evening, we celebrated a near impossible birthday wish granted. I was relieved until she said, “You know what I have never seen in Maine? A pine marten.” ~ Bob Duchesne