Lower Marsh

J, the fishing guide, is driving out on the partially flooded access road as I am driving in.  We stop and chat, both of us surprised at the high level of the water, which I figure to be about 8 inches over the tide level.  There is a stiff onshore wind leading a coming weather front...a storm surge without the storm. 

A full trip up into the forest is less appetizing with the thought of the return trip into the stiff breeze.  It looked like a much better idea from the armchair.

A dozen young Willets are mixed in with an equal number of Laughing Gulls on the Neck River docks.  The water is high enough to be flooding some of the short spartina marsh, so perhaps they've moved here preferring dry feet.

I head up the Neck and then into Bailey Creek.  As I start my way through the Sneak I am thinking about how few shore birds there are when four Black Ducks, just ten feet away, flush.  I wacth them climb and circle in a neat formation until they are quite high up.  Halfway through the Sneak I spot six Great Egrets feeding in a flooded section of the spartina.  Pannes like this were more common in the marsh until the government trenched the area for mosquito control  There would be a lot more birds here as there would be a lot more feeding spots without those trenches.  Although not maintained, after several decades the trenches are still there.

I head back down the East taking side trips to the east to explore a couple of the channels that head off river into the marsh.  Osprey are especially active over by the east forest area...more noise than sightings, but well populated.