One Day, Two Trips

October 5
M joined me for today's trip and it seemd to me to be a good day to go someplace she had not yet been. 

Menunketesuck River

We put in on the Menunketesuck with the water dropping a last couple of inches to low tide.  The air was still in the 50's with a clear and vivid blue sky - not a bit of haze in it.  After paddling a couple bends out of the shallowest part of the river we left the few houses behind.  Then through a subtle "gate", a low bluff on one side and an exposed 15 ft high cliff on the other and out into the open salt marsh.  We explored one of the draining dead end inlets until it ran out of water, then returned to the river and headed down as far as the Post Road.  From there we could have continued around into another river, but the in between is short mile of yacht parking lot, which is about the dreariest canoeing one can imagine.  So we headed back.  It is a quiet bird day.  5 Great Egrets in a "pack" and a few Kingfishers and a couple Sandpipers.  No Osprey and more oddly, no ducks or geese.

Menunketesuck River

It was a short paddle of maybe 5 miles and we both agreed that more was needed.  So, when we finished, we loaded the canoe and headed north about 5 miles to Messerschmidt Pond, which M, again, had never seen before.  I don't come to the pond often as I have to make two or three laps of it to get a good length of paddling out of it.  But, it is freshwater with water shield and lily pads and entirely surrounded by forest without any shoreline houses.  If only it was a chain of such lakes...

And so, we headed out and enjoyed the quiet and illusion of wildness.  Birdwise, the pond was remarkably unoccupied.  In fact, my only sighting was the distant shadow of a flying bird that I never observed in the flesh.

Messerschmidt Pond

We circled the pond, circled the two islands in the pond, changed directions and wandered this way and that until it was time to go.  It was a fine day.