I was driving 65, maybe 70 miles per hour along a single-lane highway in southern Vermont when I noticed something that transformed my passing interest in nature and  wildlife into full-blown fascination.

It was an unassuming yellow sign with black lettering that read, “moose crossing.”

Moose crossing? You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought. A local high school deviant must have stolen the sign from wherever it is moose live and transplanted it as a joke into southern Vermont. Surely someone will notify the police and the proper authorities will have the sign removed.

Or maybe I just read the sign incorrectly. I was, after all, clipping along at a decent rate along an unfamiliar, curvy highway.

“Hey, I think I saw a ‘moose crossing’ sign on Route 7,” I said sheepishly upon my return to the office later that day. “Is that a joke or what?”

“No, no. There’s moose around here,” said a co-worker. “Not a lot, but they’re out there.”

I had recently moved to southern Vermont from western Pennsylvania and the “moose crossing” sign was my first lesson in how diverse, unpredictable and exhilarating wildlife watching can be in the northeastern United States.

I become obsessed with find one. I had to see a moose.

Thus the adventure began. It was off the woods — and the library. I prowled through the Green Mountain National Forest by day and read books about moose and wildlife by night.

Despite my persistence, months passed without even a hint of a moose. Along the way, though, my knowledge of and appreciation for the outdoors as a whole grew immensely. There certainly is no better way to learn than to completely immerse yourself in the subject.

The grand prize, however, eluded me. I had not found my moose.

Then, one a hot summer day I came across a set of strange, huge tracks in the mud. No doubt they were moose tracks. Only a moose could have made tracks as long as my hand nearly as wide. My heart rate quickened as I whipped up my head and looked around. Nothing to the right, nothing left, nothing straight ahead. I turned frantically. Nothing behind me.

Of course the mammoth that left the tracks still wasn’t around. It had probably ambled through that spot days ago and at the moment was nowhere remotely near the area.

So the quest continued, only with renewed zeal and vigor.

The inevitable finally happened on a crisp autumn afternoon.

I’d like to say that my exhaustive research and hours in the woods seeking out remote and forgotten water holes finally paid off with a sighting of a mighty bull moose majestically strolling through a mist-shrouded beaver pond.

However, here’s the reality of my first moose sighting.

A buddy of mine, Tim, was visiting and, while we were driving 65, maybe 70 miles per hour along the same stretch of highway on which was planted the infamous “moose crossing” sign, caught a glimpse of a big, brown object at the edge of the woods on the opposite side of the road.

“Moose! Over there,” I said, or rather, I bellowed.

Tim, although startled by my sudden outburst, hit the brakes, banged a U-turn and backtracked toward the moose. It was an average-sized cow moose indifferently watching the leaf peeper traffic whiz by. It paid no attention to Tim and me as we idled on the road’s shoulder about 30 yards away.

Not exactly an earth-shattering scene, but a moose sighting nonetheless, and I was energized.

My months-long quest was finished, but as it turns out, the adventure was only beginning. Since I was a little kid, I had always had an interest in nature and wildlife, but this moose search and sighting stoked those often dormant embers and got them blazing stronger than ever. I wanted to see more moose, more herons, more loons, more otters. More nature.

That initial moose adventure was nearly a decade ago and since then I’ve lived in four states and worked in five, all in the northeast section of the U.S. Along the way I’ve visited innumerable wilderness areas and canoed countless lakes, ponds and rivers.

I’ve combed the northeast’s woods, fields, lakes, coastlines — even its backyards and cities — for its incredible wildlife. I’ve seen hundreds of moose and, yes, many were mighty bulls majestically strolling through mist-shrouded beaver ponds.

Birds have become a particular fascination of mine and I’ve participated in many bird counts for various conservation organizations.

In the past 10 years, I’ve experienced and learned more from nature than I could have possibly imagined and I am eager to share some of my stories.

In subsequent For the Birds columns, I will write about some of the amazing things I’ve seen and some of the wondrous places I’ve gone.

But, more importantly, I will share the amazing things I will see and wondrous placed I will go.

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