As I near the far shore, it begins to sprinkle, and two Osprey fly in front of me, each with a fish in their talons. I head downstream. I don't come this way often, even though it is an excellent bit of shoreline. It is a long sandy spit of land that separates (or creates) Lord Cove from the main river. Forested at the upper end, as the elevation drops, it yields to shrubs and finally to cattails and spartina. A few years ago, somein bought much of the land from an idiot club, and since then he has been pulling out invasive plants and cleaning up after the idiots, and it definitely shows. In the first quarter mile, I spot fifteen Osprey and a half dozen Great Blue Herons. Then, more Osprey, a couple more Great Blue Herons, six Great Egrets and an immature Bald Eagle. Clearly, this is the bird grocery store today. I enter the channel that leads into Lord Cove. Add a few hundred Swallows to the count. They have begun to collect on Goose Island, a well known annual pre-migration ritual. There is a small marsh island a hundred yards in and I flush six Great Egrets, four Great Blue Herons and about forty Mallards, from about a 100 square yards of soggy land.
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| Immature Bald Eagle |
I drift and paddle across the bay the forms the bottom of the cove, but it is clear that all of the wildlife action is out on the main river. I check my watch and turn back following the edge of the bay back to the river, deciding that my time would be better spent observing the birds. Going through the channel out to the river, the swallows count moves from a few hundred to a couple thousand.
The Eagle hasn't moved an inch. The Osprey are still in the forest at the upper end of the spit. I cross over following the old Ely Ferry route and meet up with four kayakers at the breach. They aren't the usual club kayaker fare and after two of them come up from a couple rolls of their kayaks, we chat and paddle back to the put-in.
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