To Wooster Island

The current was really moving, the dropping tide adding to the normal current and all of it forced through the narrows under the bridge where I was putting in.  Heading upstream, I eddy hopped the bridge abutments, ducking in behind them in the slow water, cutting back out into the flow just as I reached the pillars.  Then, I ferried across the rest of the river and followed the edges of the marsh taking the farthest back channel, the one the encompasses Peacock, Karsten, Long and Pope's Islands.  That channel is shallow, but I filled the bird quota almost immediately.  Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, both of the Night Herons, one Green Heron and a call from an unseen Clapper Rail before I was halfway through.

Yellow Crowned Night Herons - mature, juvenile and immature

Once above the islands, I followed the west shore.  The current is stronger on this side, but I just didn't feel like crossing back over.  This side is a bedrock bank - more of a short bluff than anything, with trees growing on the top.  I started flushing Osprey.  There are a lot of good perches here to watch for fish in the main channel.  Osprey, Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons are a constant all along the river today.

As I neared the dragonfly factory, I spotted a runner on the bank - all I saw were long spindly legs, seemed to be heading back into the brush.  Then it reappeared.  It is a whitetail fawn playing in the water.  The doe stood near, but the fawn kept leaping out into a few inches of water, making some splashes, and then running back to shore.

On the next stretch I spot a few hawks.   I turn back when I reach Wooster Island and follow the east shore back spotting one immature and one mature Bald Eagle as I get back near the dragonfly factory.  I run into the reversed flood tide current at Fowler Island.  The tide current reverses for about 5 miles up the river.