Black Hall River

I set out from the Lieutenant River heading down toward the sea through the back channel that only the small boats use.  The weather is perfect and the timing on the tide ideal for a longer trip up to the end of the Black Hall River.

2/3 of mile from the put in, the River splits with the right fork leading direct to the Connecticut River.  The left fork leads down an protected inner and sometimes shallow channel all the way to the mouth of the larger river.  Phragmites rule the shore for a half mile.  It's an invasive reed that is poor habitat for most birds and mammals, and true to form, there's nothing of interest.  At that point the vista opens up, I pass a small island known as the Watch Rocks and paddle into a healthier salt marsh environment.  Osprey are fairly still right now and that may be due to the slack tide.  Here and there are Egrets, easy to spot in their pure white plumage.

 

After 45 minutes of paddling I turn up the Black Hall River and pass a foursome mix of juvenile Snowy Egrets and Little Blue Herons.  The bill color is the tip off for the juvenile Little Blue Herons as the bill of a young Snowy should be black.  Young Little Blue Herons mingle with Snowy Egrets for protection.  

At first the river is salt marsh, but gradually it narrows and cattails or forested shoreline takes over.  I've arrived just as the tide peaked, so I have neither a current to paddle against nor one to coast on.

I suspect this is a juvenile Little Blue Heron due to the bill color

 

The river meanders gently and continues to gradually narrow.  There are houses but it is not a steady diet of them.  It's pretty easy to see that much of this land was farmed at one time.

Cormorants looking about as good as Cormorants get

The last mile of the river is my favorite and if I could find a river with a hundred miles of this I would be there more often than not.  The river narrows to three or four canoe lengths and meanders more tightly. The insides of bends are cattails with the trees coming to the water's edge on the outside.  I spot two Green Herons in this area and I find a long run of pine trees that I did not remember from past trips.  This area is more of a hardwood forest area although pines aren't rare, but this is a larger group than normal.

The lightest green is wild rice

I turn at a patch of wild rice where the river just gets to one canoe length in width.  I know from earlier trips that the river will disappear into a cattail marsh fairly soon.  The tide is dropping and I have a mild current to ride on back to the big river.

Green Heron

 

Back at the big river I now have a pretty stiff current to paddle against.  From the Black Hall up to a channel called the Back River (it is not a river, just a connection between the big river and the inner channel) the current runs hard.  Above the Back River it calms down significantly as little of the big river finds it's way into this area.  Osprey are busy fishing and I wonder if that is due to better fishing when the tide current is running.

Just below the take out a woman's dog jumps in and swims out trying to follow me.  I lead it back to shore.  The woman thanked me and tells me that she wasn't sure if the dog would keep following.  The dog looked to me like it had had enough swimming for the day and didn't need to be coaxed onto shore.