Shephaug

 I started out from Pond Brook. It is a fine day sixty some degrees, light winds, and lots of sun. I head straight across the river once I get down what used to be a brook. The dam downstream has turned the brook into a cove. There is also an old railroad bed below the surface. Anyway, once in the big river, I head downstream and round the point into the Shephaug. I get shadowed from above and a Red Tail Hawk lands in a tree directly over me.

I flush a Great Blue Heron. I had almost paddled by without seeing it. It circles around me and heads upstream. It will lead me in short flights for the next mile or so. Up ahead, a mature Bald Eagle circles out over the river in the usual spot, a widening in the river where the Eagles often perch up high on the hillside. There is a nest, but I have only a vague idea of where it is. Last year, I heard the Eaglets whistling a storm as one of the parents returned with food and it seemed that the nest was well back in the forest. I watch for the nest as the trees are still bare and if I am going to spot it, this is the time of year to do so, but I don't see any sign of the nest.

I pass a fisherman and ask what he's gong for, "Anything I can eat - bass, crappies or perch." He makes up a full half of all people that I will see on the water today.

I stop to stretch my legs where the old rail bed rises up out of the water. Then, continue up. I spot eight Common Mergansers in the last two bends below the cascades. I get to hear the male Merganser call, first time I've heard a Merganser vocalize. It is a low pitched gurgly rattle, a second long with a bit of pitch change in the middle. I see four Wood Ducks just above the Mergansers. 

I head back out. I spot another Eagle at the confluence of the Housatonic and Shephaug, which is the other usual place to spot an Eagle. Another Red Tail Hawk flies over.