Rain Day, Selden

The forecast is for eventual clearing and a sunny warm day, but right now this looks like one of the thousands of rainy Pacific Northwest days that I've paddled and hiked through.  I put in at Ely's Ferry and follow the shore upriver.  It is raining steady and will do so for the next hour and a half.  The river is high and murky with runoff from recent rain and extra water coming down from up north, and the tide has just peaked, so the ebb current will gradually add to the mayhem.  There is a good downstream current, but it is tolerable by staying close to shore and ducking into the occasional eddy.

Red Throated Loon

If you're dressed for it, paddling in the rain has definite advantages.  For one, no one else is out. For two, rain muffles background noise - if there is any traffic or machinery in the area, the sound is often absorbed by the rainfall.

I spot a Kingfisher, a couple of Blue Jays, get overtaken by a Cormorant, and note a pair of Osprey setting up their nest on a navigation light.  The rain is keeping the activity to a minimum.  Just below the entrance to the Selden channel, I spot a Red Throated Loon.  There is also a new Osprey nest in a river-left snag near that spot.  

The channel has a 2:1 current running today.  This is unusually strong for this side channel and I figure it is due to the river level more than anything.  I spot a swimming beaver about a 1/4 mile in.  It does a nice tail slap and disappears.  I spot about ten Osprey before getting to the top of the channel.  There is a new nest about 3/4 of the way up, built in an old bare wood (no bark left) snag on river left.

The Elf Forest

I turn back at the cove and the current becomes a bit more obvious as I leisurely speed downstream. The sun comes out, the clouds moving off rather suddenly.  Before leaving the channel, I take a side trip back into the Elf Forest...  quite a few birds back in here.  I flush about thirty Black Ducks, a few Mallards, a pair of Mergansers, a pair of Canada Geese.  A movie Eagle (Hawk) screeches from the forest, but I never spot it.  As I spin to head back out, a Snipe darts up out of the grasses...and disappears just as fast.  Pass another (or maybe the same) Red Throated Loon just before leaving the channel.  

I follow the same shore back, noting some spiffy chop where the current is banging into submerged geography.