Doing the Laundry

Running water -  I paddled into Nell's channel at low tide, my head five feet below the top of the mud bank, seven feet below the top of the spartina.  The remains of the high tide are still draining off of the flats as tiny waterfalls and casades tumbling down the mud cliffs.

It is going to be a hot and humid day. If I was on a canoe trip I would have been on the water at dawn and have the day's paddling done by noon. But, this is a short trip.  It barely qualifies as exercise other than for the mind and soul.  It is a washing of the most valuable of valuables.

Today, the banks of the big river is the domain of Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets and Ducks and they are out in good numbers.  At the top of Nell's channel, the species trade out.  Little sandpipers run about on the flattest of exposed shore.  There are a good two dozen Yellow Legs.  The Yellow Legs have been gone most of the summer as they nest farther north. Once their broods are flying, they return to what must be better feeding grounds for them.  The Willets do something similar although they are absent having left the marsh for somewhere else.  There are a couple Great Egrets and six Snowy Egrets and as I paddle, three to one seems to be the Egret ratio.  I spot a couple Night Herons, but I imagine that most of them are deeper in the marsh where there isn't enough water to float a canoe for a few more hours.  Lastly, the young Osprey are out of the nests.

Halfway up the channel I hear that bird call again.  It's a loud scratchy call, three beats to it. Sounds like a scold from a big bird, but that might be completely wrong. I heard it on my last trip in here.  It's one of the birds that stays hidden in the grass, the ones that run back into cover instead of flying off.  I hope someday to put sound and sight together.

I exit the channel out into the big river, swing wide around a wide sandbar.  There is no one else out here today.  It is still cloudy and it rained just before I set out.  Rain is a great filter for making places just a little bit wilder; so many people won't go out in it.  While out canoeing one day, a friend asked me if I canoed in the rain.  I answered by reminding him that we were already sitting on several million gallons of water.