Salmon River

We headed up into Salmon Cove on one of those beautiful late summer days.  The sunlight at this time of year is less washed out than in mid summer and with the humidity reduced, it is almost as if one had a new and perfect prescription in their glasses.  There was a light breeze and a scattering of high clouds, it was perfect canoe weather.

There were a few parties of kayaks, but they were all dippers, paddling as if the rule was that one blade of the kayak paddle had to be completely dry before it could be returned to the water.  We quickly passed and distanced ourselves from them.

There are a good number of Great Blue Herons well spaced and working the shallows.  Also, cormorants and a about 20 Mute Swans plus a few Osprey.  The Osprey nests look like they took a pretty good beating during our last storm.  Fortunately, that storm came after the young fledged.  The nests are still in place but they lost a lot of material and currently aren't big enough for tending eggs. 

At the top of the cove we headed up into the Moodus.  It is no more than a mile to the Johnsonville mill dam, which blocks further passage.  But, after a wind storm a few years ago the river is blocked by a log jam some 2/3 mile in, and that log jam isn't worth the crawl considering what is above.  Today we came up a hundred yards short of the log jam having found a new beaver dam.  Right now it has about a foot of height and I'll have to check on it during future trips.  It is good to know that there is a healthy beaver colony in the area.

Wild Rice

We headed back out and up the Salmon River, repassing the pod of kayaks and turning up into Pine Creek, another short side trip.  Pine Creek has a large patch of wild rice, maybe 20 acres, I suppose.  Although a lot of the kernels were gone, there was still a large number of songbirds in the grass.  When we flushed them they would rise up just a couple of feet above the tops of the grass and move a short distance.  Then, we observed them flush just as they had been doing except they dropped down to the base of the grass.  And, a Sharp Shinned Hawk swooped past and then settled in a nearby tree.  Another 50 yards or so and we came to another flock of birds.  They flushed once or twice for us and then dove for the bottoms and a Coopers Hawk sped through perching in a tree directly over us.  One last hawk, a medium sized too high to be identified overflew the wild rice.

We headed out following the shallower north shore.