…at about 1100 feet in the tongue mountain range and you heard that coming from above, loud and then every bird in the vicinity took wing, all achatter, then you heard it again? If you were me you’d find that your instincts took over and you would immediately flee the vicinity. This happened about 2 weeks ago. I was making my way down to 5th point (although I thought I was heading to 5 mile peak, but that’s another story – time to really learn how the GPS actually works!) when I heard this, and the moment I heard it the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my flee instinct took over – I started heading right back towards the trailhead.

At the time I thought it must have been a bear, despite the late date. The winter’s been very mild so far so I figured it just hadn’t begun hibernating yet. It didn’t sound like any bear I had ever heard, but what else could it be? Many chats with friends later and I’ve concluded it was probably an ultra-rare mountain lion, mostly because of the page of audio recordings I’ve linked to – nothing else sounded as close to what I heard as the link I posted above – and because of conversations with a biologist at Skidmore and a colleague at Bowdoin. I saw absolutely nothing. The sound was coming from a ridgeline up above me by at least 100 feet, and aside from the growl like noises repeating twice I heard nothing either. But man, it was a spooky thing to hear out in the woods by yourself, whether it was a mountain lion or not.

The biologist here at Skidmore reported it to a friend of his who works in the fish and game department. They’re not unheard of in this region, they’re just exceedingly rare and as far as I am aware there have been only a couple of actual sightings, so in a sense I was lucky even if I didn’t actually see it. I’d really rather not run into one though, at least not until my dog is old enough to help me fend it off. Meantime I’m buying a can of pepper spray to bring with me on my hikes.