With the National Wildlife Refuge System celebrating its 100th anniversary this week, I thought I’d share some of my favorite memories made possible by Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation effort established on March 14, 1903.

My best outing at a National Wildlife Refuge has to be a late spring day a few years ago at Lake Umbagog NWR in northern New Hampshire. Like many of my favorite wildlife memories, the day was spent in a canoe — sunup to sundown.

A common loon pair swam very close to my canoe as the first rays of the sun began to peek over the mountains to the east. The beautiful birds followed me around the Androscoggin River as I made my way toward the lake. Eventually the loons decided they had more important things to do with their day and disappeared.

I was hardly left alone, however. Wildlife is never far away at Umbagog — or most National Wildlife Refuges for that matter.

A northern harrier I saw shortly after the loons’ departure was only one of many birds of prey I saw that day. I also glimpsed Umbagog’s nesting bald eagles and several of the refuge’s plentiful osprey, many with fish in talons.

I tucked my canoe into the high grass near a small island and watched as snipe and rails cautiously hunted the edge of the island. I heard an American bittern, but never found the secretive bird with odd vocalization. 

I moved on and spotted a female moose in the distance. I stopped paddling and drifted to a stop behind a tree. The moose walked so close to the canoe that I could see where her winter coat was shedding and her summer coat was coming in.

Wood ducks, common mergansers and goldeneye were only some of the waterfowl I saw that day. American redstarts, magnolia warblers, tree swallows and cedar waxwings were a few of the songbirds.

That was the best day I’ve spent at a National Wildlife Refuge, but the day I was able to visit Falkner Island of the Stewart B. McKinney NWR in Connecticut is a close second. Falkner Island reminded me of my trip to the Galapagos Islands. Common terns were literally everywhere. They flew — and divebombed — all around my head and I walked within a few feet of their nests, some of which were built right on the trail. There were also roseate terns, an endangered species, on the island. 

I thank the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials at McKinney headquarters for that experience.

This memory is too recent to know where it will eventually rank, but the harbor seals I watched off the coast of Sheffield Island last week was a great experience. Sheffield Island is also part of the Stewart B. McKinney NWR. I joined about 20 other brave souls on a Winter Creature Cruise put on by the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk and we were lucky enough to see eight seals basking on the rocks off the island at low tide. 

The seals stayed on the rocks and we all got a great look at them. I was fascinated at how different the seals looked from one another even though they were all the same species. It certainly made up for the first seal watch I did in February when the group came up empty on seal sightings.

The McKinney NWR is spread out along the Connecticut coast from Westbrook to Greenwich. Earlier this week I saw my first snowy owl at the Great Meadows unit of the refuge. I’ve also spent many, many hours at the refuge’s Milford Point unit. Piping plovers, least terns and American oystercatchers are some of the many birds I see there with regularity.

I used to frequent the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge near Newburyport, Mass., when my wife (then fiancé) lived in that state. Parker NWR on Plum Island is a great birdwatching spot with wading birds, waterfowl, shorebirds, raptors and songbirds. 

I’ve been to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia only one time, which is not nearly enough to really see the incredible park. I didn’t even see the wild horses which live on the island, so I missed a lot. I did see a tremendous amount of wildlife, though, including hundreds of black skimmers and a few sika elk, a deer imported from Asia.

I’ve seen many bird and animal species in refuges that I otherwise would not have been able to see. I have memories of visits to Montezuma NWR in New York and Erie NWR in Pennsylvania, as well as Great Meadows in Sudbury, Mass. There are 540 units within the National Wildlife Refuge System and I’ve been to about a dozen of them. I guess I have my work cut out for me.

Happy anniversary National Wildlife Refuge System. Thanks TR.

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