Watercolor Clouds

 In the morning when I looked out the window I saw the gray watercolor overcast that reminded me of cold fall days growing up in Minnesota.  Those are remembered as hunting days, early starts to go to some unknown place to wander in the woods or stand in a marsh.  Otherwise, those fall days were the in between days, not enough snow to sled or enough ice to skate and too cold for swimming.  But, when I opened the back door to sheck the weather, it was already around 60 degrees and in the humidity it felt balmy.

I set out late heading downstream toward the big marsh.  Even though it was just an hour before high tide, the upstream flood current was still strong, the tide being a very high one.  Strong eddies formed around the drawbridge abutments.  It is unusual to get turned out of line by those currents, but the water was really moving.

I passed a small oyster boat.  It had a crew of a skipper and two deck hands.  Their dredge was a screen satchel - 3 ft x 2ft x 1 ft.  It looked like a large purse.  They would drop it and then drag it about a hundred yards, then crank it up by hand and dump it.  Dredges in the river have to be hand cranked to limit the catch.

 As I reached the big marsh the clouds opened up and low filtered sunlight lit the spartina.  With the very high tide the entire marsh was well flooded and I doubt that there was anywhere that one could stand without being wet to the knees.  But, with the high water I could paddle most any route that I wanted, so I headed more or less straight up through the center of it aiming for Milford Point.  Right away I spotted a juvenile Night Heron. 

I expected that the Herons would all be gone by now and thought about how some of these late migrating birds, like the Osprey that I also spotted, somehow had not been given the geomagnetic codes for the migration.  But then again, with climate change perhaps these late migrators are actually the leaders.

I retrieved three mylar balloons from the spartina.  Whenever I see that shit I always imagine some person handing them to another and saying, "Congratulations and in your honor I will try to sacrifice some sea animals."  

I spotted three more juvenile Night Herons near the bottom of the marsh and a mature Black Crowned Night Heron and a juvenile on the return.

I headed around and back upriver not wanting to have to paddle into a stiff ebb current.  I arrived back at my put-in while the current was slack.