Selden and Whalebone Cove

I put in underneath Gillette Castle, a grotto-ish mansion built atop a bluff by the actor who originated the typical image of Sherlock Holmes - the deerstalker cap and pipe. The castle and grounds are well worth a visit for anyone in the area.  There is a moderate wind coming mostly upriver, the temperature is about 60F, the water is high.

I head down following the shore. A pair of Osprey have returned to their nest on one of the navigation markers and they are busy repairing their nest. There is a second pair is at their nest just inside Whalebone Cove, maybe 100 yards away. Their nest is in a snag and it looks ready to go.

Halfway down to Selden Island I spot a mature Bald Eagle, which heads off across the river.

I head down the Selden Channel. It was a creek once upon a time. A flood in the 1850's busted through and created the upper entrance. A quarter mile in is a large bay, which I figure was a pond in 1850, and the channel leading down river would have been Selden Creek, which is what most people still call it. Continuing on, I spot a few more Osprey. One pair is building a new nest in a bald topped snag (no branches to help support the structure). I go down as far as the Elf Forest, a dead end side trip that is overlooked by most other people, because it doesn't go anywhere. But, everyplace you go goes somewhere. I flush a half dozen Black Ducks in there and a Great Egret flies over and settles not too far away.

Elf Forest

I head out and into another channel closer to the island. There is an extensive marsh running the length of the island and in high water it is sometimes possible to make your way in the "back alley", but not today. So. it's back to the main channel.  

Beaver scent mound in the Elf Forest

While passing a set of cliffs, there is a loud splash in the brush next to the water. Only one thing that could be, and I look down and spot a submerged beaver swimming under the canoe. It doesn't take long before it surfaces and gives me a tail slap. Then it comes up on the other side of me.  I spot a second smaller beaver. They seem a little perturbed, so I head off after a couple minutes.

Four Common Mergansers - two males and two females, as a group, and staying together when they flush, near the top of the channel.

New nest

On the way back, I go into Whalebone Cove. The cove is actually a large marsh. Not only that, but it is a somewhat new marsh, being only 300-400 years old. Ocean levels were still rising - a tail end of the ice age. In yesterday's post, I wrote about early habitation in Connecticut. The oldest site that I know of dates to 12,000-13,000 years ago. This means that people were moving into the area as the gice age glaciers were retreating. It can be hard to keep track of the numbers, but Long Island is the terminal moraine of the ice sheet that covered New England - the gravels and boulders that the glacier pushed ahead it piled up to become Long Island. For quite some time, Long Island Sound was a fresh water glacial lake, until ocean levels rose enough to breach the land separating the two bodies of water. And of course, the earliest of the habitations can be expected to be under water. It doesn't take too much imagination to turn back time and see the marsh as a meadow or bottomland forest.

Entrance to Whalebone Cove

With that, I head back out and finish the trip.