Springtime in the Maine woods is a busy season full of new life, and one of the first animals I try to capture with my cameras is moose calves. Early June is when many cows drop their calves — usually singles or, if you’re lucky, twins. The calves stay tight to their mothers and hidden in thick cover while they get stronger on milk and fresh browse.
If you’re gonna try to get pictures of a cow with her young calf, you’ll need to set your cameras in spots with good security and early green-up. Cows look for thick cover to stay safe from predators, plus easy access to tender new growth and water.
Like all my camera locations, this starts with a ton of work in front of the computer during the offseason. I bounce between a few different sites to piece it together. Google Earth has a historical feature so you can see the cuts and what years they were logged. Bing Maps has some of the best recent satellite images for spotting game trails through the cuts, and onX has LiDAR and topography layers to find good pinch points.
I like to focus on 10- to 15-year-old cuts for moose calves. At that age, the regrowth is thick enough to give them good cover and security, but the old twitch trails are still open enough for easy walking and plenty of browse along the edges. Fresher cuts are usually too open and there’s almost nothing for them to eat.
Once I’ve done the offseason homework and picked out a few spots, I fly a drone over them to see what they look like and check for recent signs. This time of year I’m mostly looking for trampled game trails, and with green-up just starting, they’re pretty easy to spot. If it looks like a highway, that spot jumps to the top of my list.
If the drone backs up what I saw on the computer, I pack up the gear and hike in. This time of year is also great for seeing bulls in velvet, so I always carry my camera on the walk.
Over the years, all the scouting and hiking have shown that the best spots are usually in cuts on larger old twitch trails. I set the cameras right in the middle of those trails where the sign is strongest. I try to face them north when possible to cut down on sun glare, and I always mount them on a solid tree so the wind doesn’t shake the trunk and cause false triggers. I set them at eye level for the animals or even a little lower. That way the pictures feel like you’re right there in their world instead of looking down on them.
Because these same cuts and trails draw a lot of wildlife, they also pull in quite a few bears. Black bears are the biggest predator of moose calves in the spring, so you really can’t have one without the other around here. In early June, the bears are just out of their dens and hungry — they’re out foraging hard on new green stuff, shoots, insects and whatever else they can find. Sows with cubs are moving through the same areas too, so it’s a great time to catch both sides of spring.
This method has given me some of my best cow-calf photos or videos over the years, whatever settings I choose on the game cameras. There’s just something pretty cool about pulling a card and seeing a cow walking through with her tiny calf right behind her — maybe even two. It makes all the offseason work and the hikes worth it.
