High Water

I friend up in New Hampshire reported a big storm blew through yesterday.  A more local river gauge for the Connecticut showed it dancing right at flood stage.  That is a lot of water for mid-July.  The current on the big river will be moving pretty fast today, but that high water means that the back channels and tributaries will be high and backed up with water, which is opportunity to explore narrow and shallower small places, if you can get to them.

I put in at Pilgrims Landing and head up into Lord Cove.  The water is definitely high with the tiny beach completely under water as are the first few rocks that like to reach out and bump canoes.  The sky is still hazy from western forest fires, it would be clear blue sky if it wasn't for the murk.  

After crossing Goose Bay I take the first left hand channel, a long big loopy detour.  The phragmites eradication that the government performed a couple years ago is really showing payback.  Of course, the invasive non-native phragmites are gone, but now there is a bumper crop of cattails with the sedges, reeds and wild rice that should also be here.  It is quite lush.  The other thing I notice is the huge number of Marsh Wrens.  I don't actually see more than a couple - they kind of hover up into the air for a second and drift back into the cattails - no, this is an audible count.  They are singing from all directions.  Marsh Wrens can nest in phragmites, but I bet they much prefer cattails as the cattail spears are a favorite in their woven ball nests. Visually, the bird count is Redwing Blackbirds, Great Blue Herons, Cormorants and Osprey, in that order, but the Marsh Wrens outnumber them five hundred to one.

I continue up and around the west side of Coutes Hole and then north.  I try a couple inlets before a long dead end tunnel through the cattails takes me to within fifty yards of the Ely Ferry Road.

Every channel looks the same

On the way out I paddle over to check the Eagle nest.  The young have fledged and the nest is unoccupied.  Then around the next point and over to the little bridge, then follow the east shore out.