3,584 acres, Great Moose Lake in Hartland, Harmony, Athens and St. Albans, Maine, is very quiet.
The shores and waters of Great Moose Lake provide habitat for
at least three rare animals as well as an uncommon floodplain
forest community. Black terns, known from only a dozen sites
in Maine, have been documented as nesting here consistently
since 1988. The Pickerel Cove population is one of the most
viable nesting populations in the state, with 12-15 nesting
pair common. One of the most optimal bald eagle habitats in
the Sebasticook watershed is present in the Great Moose Lake
Focus Area.
Bald eagles have nested on Round Island and the
shallow cove south of it every year since 1994 and eagles often
perch and forage along the wooded point on the northwest
side of The Narrows.
A few individuals of the tidewater mucket,
a rare mussel, have been found near the Narrows; it may occur
elsewhere in the lake as well. The lake also provides excellent
habitat for wading birds and waterfowl. Furthermore, a silver
maple floodplain forest extends along Higgins and Fergusson
Brooks to the north shore of the lake.
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