Because I am Still Curious

It is overcast with a possibility of rain, but there might have to be more vertical motion in the cluds before anything noticeable comes of it.  There is a very light wind, so light that I don't care what direction it comes from, and it is humid and about 80F.  I ut in under the highway and head down to the marsh.  The tide is rising, but not quite halfway up, so it is a good time to bird watch.  It was a good time to feed my curiosity.

The milk bottle was pulled out just above the paddle blade

The upper entrance to the maze is still too shallow for passage.  I divert to the upper Nell's channel entry.  I find and recover a milk bottle from the cut bank just inside the entrance.  It is 3 paddle blades deep - about 22 inches.  It is a well embossed bottle from the City Dairy, wherever that is. Without dating it, the depth suggests about 1940, as my current calculations for soil accretion in the marsh are 50 years/foot.  I find another bottle about 20 yards in. It is a surface find that won't help in the dating process, but it is old.  It's a small bottle that was cork sealed, mold made, but the glass has an uneven blue tint and there are several large bubbles in the glass.  It will probably date to about 1900 because of the bubbles and blue tint.

As I head into the maze, I flush a Night Heron here and there - one at a time.  There are also a few Great Egrets, and a couple Snowys.  The water level is just perfect to get under the root ball log, and I should note that this is just above the minimum level for a passage through the maze.  At most tides, the log blocks passage and requires a short detour.  I jot down the time, 2:10 pm so that I can check the tide level for future trips (tide is at about 4.25 feet and flooding). 

The tide is flooding and at 4.25 feet.

After exiting the maze, I head up to Milford Point by an indirect route, and then into the center of the marsh. About 30 Egrets fly by, too far for me to be the cause, but they must have been in the marsh somewhere west of the Central Phragmites Patsh.  

I work my way over to the east side, and then head back out via the inner Sneak.  With the flood tide, it is an easy upriver paddle.