Crow on a chicken

Photo:

A crow sits upon a chicken carcass placed on the guardrail across from Gordie Howe's general store in Hanover. Chris Howe hopes to get some shots of an eagle that frequents the area. (Photo submitted by Chris Howe)

Photo:

Chris Howe captured this shot of a bald eagle and it's young this past summer just down river from the general store. (Photo submitted by Chris Howe)

HANOVER- Are you a wildlife photographer and want a new way to get those much desired pictures of birds of prey? If you’ve been traveling through Hanover recently, your eye may have caught a glimpse of something across the street from Gordie Howe’s. No, your eyes weren’t playing tricks on you, you most likely did see a chicken carcass stuck on the top of the guardrail.

“On Thanksgiving day I carved the turkey and was wondering what to do with it,” stated Chris Howe, owner of the local general store. “We had been placing scraps on the other side of the guard rail, but in anticipation of snow, decided to put it on the post.”

Chris has a love for nature photography, which he has framed and displayed throughout his store, and has captured some pretty amazing shots of our natural world. He shared how he would like to get some shots of the bald eagles that frequent the river in search of ducks.

“Over the last four years, starting about the second or third week of October, the eagle would fly low upriver. Seems as the river cools down, the fish will sit at the bottom where the water is warmer and they can submerge their bodies in the mud to stay even warmer. With no fish the eagles have to hunt the ducks. The eagles that migrate follow the Androscoggin to the ocean and feed on sea ducks.”

Soon after placing the turkey carcass out on the guardrail, Chris stated, “It’s funny, really. The local boys would be sitting here having their morning coffee and one would look up and say, ‘Hey, Chris, crow on a turkey,’ and then when we put the chicken out there, it became, ‘Crow on a chicken,’ it gives us all something to look at and laugh at. And, I’m hoping I’ll get the eagle, too.”

Living and operating a store so close to the river, Chris has a front porch view of the goings on of the river.

“The black ducks are the last to migrate and we were seeing 50-70 of them at a time in the river across from the store. They must have great eyesight, because when they'd all take off we would run to the window and shortly thereafter the eagle would be flying upriver. We speculate that he'd try and catch them trying to take off against the current. One morning the blacks took off and Greg Gallant went to the window and within five minutes the eagle flew back down the river with a duck in it's talons.”

Chris was disappointed that he didn’t have his camera at the ready on that day, but knows it is bound to happen again and he will get that picture, one day.

In the meantime, two crows, one perched on the carcass and another standing guard in a nearby tree, have taken ownership of the carcasses layed out while the rest of the flock sits in wait in a tree across the river.