The Dead of Winter

I put in up top at the old stagecoach ford.  The tide will be coming in for about three hours. It's usually less than two hours down to the sea, so my return will be with both the flood current and the southerly winds.  There is a good current of snow melt flowing at the put in and I just have to drift and stay off of the boulders in this section of the river.  I've not gone a hundred yards, still eyeballing boulders, when a Red Shouldered hawk flaps its wings and perches just thirty feet to my side.  Even though I am well within its discomfort distance, it stays and just watches me pass by.

The Gravel Flats are shallow, but I can dip paddle without having to get out and wade.  

There are a good number of ducks and geese in the forest section of the river.  The ducks are Mallards and Blacks.  At the stone arch bridge I spot a Coopers Hawk, but it flies before I can get my camera on it.

The middle marsh is very well populated with Mallards, Black Ducks and Canada Geese.  By the time I have reached the Big Bends, at least a hundred ducks have flushed.  It is a good bird day. I spot three Killdeer on the bank.  They peep at me with feracity.  I spot a Red Tail Hawk up high at the bottom of the Big Bends.  There are more birds in the river today than I have seen in quite awhile.

Killdeer

Below the railroad bridge the wind picks up.  In fact, it is a real claw just to do the hundred yards to the entrance of the Sneak.  The wind is less of a problem in the Sneak since the canoe is out of the wind even if my head isn't.  I can always back out of the Sneak if the wind keeps up.  As it is, the wind mellows by the time I get into Bailey Creek.  I spook a few Hooded Mergansers and continue down to the confluence with the East River.

Buffleheads

The return is a cruise.  With the current and wind behind me I am moving at about 6mph with ease.  I flush a flock of forty or fifty Buffleheads after the second bend.  I haven't seen that many in one place for quite some time.  There is also a pair of Teal that pop up into the air and fly off.  It's pretty amazing that a bird can explode vertically out of the water like that.

Just before the railroad bend, a Harrier takes off.  Dang, I didn't notice it until it flew.  It had been right at the waters edge.  It skims the surface of the spartina stubs and soon disappears.

I spot a second Red Shouldered Hawk perched at the bottom of the Big Bends.

Just past the bend above the stone arch bridge there is a mature Bald Eagle on the bank.  It flies to a nearby perch while I inspect the site.  It was feeding on a fresh but dead Canada Goose.  Eagles usually won't mess with geese as a flapping goose can break an eagle wing.  I suspect that the goose died from something other than the eagle.