Marsh Memory Game, and Birds

I set out from under the highway and head down to the marsh.  High tide peaks in about a half hour, so the current is just about non-existent. There is a light breeze of no significance with mostly clear sky other than some high dappled clouds. The temperature is in the mid to upper 70's.  It is a pretty good day to be on the water.

There are 31 Common Terns perched on the last dock before the marsh with another 10 or 15 in the air. By this time, I have solved all of the worlds problems, which is what canoeing is all about.

I cut through a favorite short-cut and head to another internal channel that I found earlier this year and still need to burn into my memory.  With most things in the marsh looking alike, repetition is the only way to remember which inlet leads to someplace that you want to go.  I find the internal channel on my second try, and get through it with only one wrong turn. There are a good number of Yellow Crowned Night Herons, mostly adults, just a couple fledglings.  

Short Billed Dowitchers with their usual photo cooperation

I head into the maze using the Nell's Channel entry, almost.  I take a wrong inlet, but with the high tide I can push through a canoe length of weeds to get where I was supposed to be.  I flush some Mallards, and find a good number of Yellow Crowned Night Herons - maybe 15 by the time I leave the maze.  There are several flocks of waders rising up and circling around the marsh before settling back in.  I am pretty sure that they are Short-Billed Dowitchers.  Flushing before I can get a photograph and circling around the marsh in a flock is exactly the behavior that I've seen them use in the past.  I spot only 5 or 6 Willets today, all near the bottom of Nell's Island.  When their young are fledged, they leave the marsh for better feeding. 

Immature Yellow Crowned Night Heron

I cut across the marsh somewhere near the midpoint, still amazed that I always manage to get across without running up a long dead end channel.  I head up the east side and back to the main river, where I turn upriver towards my start point.