A Long Day and New Birds

S drops me off at the harbor on her way to somewhere else.  It takes me just a few moments to put-in as anyone that has canoed with me can tell.  Everything is in its place and ready to go when I start, and everything is left in its place and ready to go when I finish.

It is a very calm day, warm and sunny - it is a day to make special use of.   When I reach the mouth of the harbor, I see that I can still pass under the rusty bridge into Gulf Pond, but it is too calm to go there and instead I turn seaward.  I spot a long-tailed duck, the first that I have ever seen although I know it from noticing its wonderful plumage while browsing through bird guides.  It does not oblige me with a good pose.

Long Tailed Duck

 A long tailed duck can dive to 200 ft and spend 3 to 4 minutes at a time underwater.

I turn SW and follow the seashore.  Recently, I followed an online discussion about risk.  One person wrote that we have become a risk averse society.  I did not agree with that, but thought about it long enough to decide that we are actually a risk ignorant society.  I paddle past beach front homes that are unscathed, and then for some quirk of nature, I paddle past fifteen or twenty houses that have the first floors busted in, windows gone or sometimes the floor, joists and walls removed leaving a cantilevered second floor dangling over the sand.  This pattern repeats itself for as long as I am on the salt water.  And we were only touched by the edge of the hurricane.

It is not the first hurricane, by any means, to reach Connecticut.  Nor will it be the last.

Something that sounds like a loon call draws me out towards a tiny sand bar at the tip of a groin (groins are underwater wing dams for the purpose of collecting and holding beachfront).  I don't see anything that matches that call, but instead I find two American oystercatchers.

American Oystercatcher

When I get to Milford Point, I find out why the houses on this exposed beach survived with minimal damage.  I had only seen them from the marsh on the other side of the point.  There is a sand/gravel bar on the sea side that is nearly a 1/4 mile across.  While well submerged, it would've broken some of the water's impact during the storm surge.  I paddle in less than 2 feet of water for a few hundred yards to get into the river.  There is a stiff current against me.

I continue to fight that current into the Wheeler marsh until I can slip into one of the dozens of channels that work their way through the spartina.  The cloudless day lights the fall colored grass to a beautiful bronze.  I wind through the channels aware that there is an expiration date when one is in a tidal marsh during a falling tide.  At some point, it is time to seek the larger deeper channels lest one find the way forward blocked... and find the way back blocked as well.  I spot a couple dozen black ducks, about 15 greater yellow legs, and 2 great blue herons during the passage.

When I exit the upstream end of the marsh, it is open big river with a growing wind at my back that not quite cancels the opposing current.  I take out a couple miles up at the feral cat park.

Calm

The day comes warm and calm, warm and calm for November.  I plan to take S for her first trip in the Wheeler marsh at the mouth of the big river, but S is notorious for forgetting that things such as tides and wind do, in fact, count.  By the time we head for the river the tide is low enough that we may not be able to return to the put-in, so I divert to the feral cat park.  A juvenile black crowned night heron watches us with great tolerance as we load the canoe.

black crowned night heron

It is a fine day to be on the big river.  A gentle wind is there with a strong downstream current, the additive of the river's own flow and the dropping tide.  We head straight out and round the upstream tip of Pope's Flat, cut across the next channel to the upstream tip of Long Island, and then follow the shoreline into the narrow channel that creates Carting Island.  The even narrower channel that splits Peacock Island from Carting has no current, so somewhere in there the bottom is fully exposed...a trip for a higher tide.  We spot a great blue heron, a kingfisher, a large and beautiful red tailed hawk that circles over us for some time, and a cooper's hawk.  Below these islands the river becomes somewhat more industrial, so we return back up that narrow channel as the water becomes increasingly shallow.  I have to get out and wade in two places.

We continue upriver following the rockier west shore and tucking in close to avoid the bulk of the opposing current.  A bit over a mile and a half and we cut across to the top of Fowler Island, which is actually high enough in a few spots to support trees.  The east channel is barely deep enough for the canoe to pass...one of the beauties of the big river being that wide swaths of it are not accessible to power boats.

We ride a downstream current along the shoreline of phragmite and spartina back to the feral cat park.

Before the Next Storm

Tomorrow, a Nor'easter arrives with its heavy rain and gale force winds.  But, today, it is calm and cloudless with cool air and some remaining patches of orange leaves dappled into the grey of a winter ready forest.

I put in on the Housatonic above the town of Shelton and the dam that blocks the river.  I am some ten miles from the sea and a 30 foot wide lane of milfoil, an invasive water plant, runs along the shore.  This shows that the water here is fresh and it also hints at the profile of the bottom, which must be fairly steep.  There is no current, either river or tidal, and there is almost no wind.

I paddle up the river a ways, at times on a mirror surface.  And, I paddle down the river a ways, until I see the buoys warning of the dam. 

There are five mute swans.  They are not mute.  One is vocalizing and it starts with a whistley wheezy sound followed by a short pants ripping fart.  I spot two kingfishers, several mallards, some ring-billed gulls and near the end of the trip, a juvenile bald eagle that sits long enough for me to take several photos.

I find a cattail marsh on the east side of the river not far from where I put in and I have a nice talk with a guy who is trying to wear down his Jack Russell terrier.

And, anything that bothered me, and among other things finding the place to put-in was quite a bother, is gone.  Such are the inner workings of a canoe.

In Little Places

We wake to a bright and sunny fall day and it seems a waste not to be outside.  The wind comes up before we can leave the house, not as bad as yesterday, but strong enough to cause me to carefully pick our trip.  We stop at the feral cat park to check on the big river, but the wind seems to be funneled into the valley and it looks to be too much work.  So, we head back up the hill to Mondo Pond.  It is a small pond, maybe three or four hundred yards across the long way.  It seems hardly worth putting the canoe in, except that it is so pretty with rounded bedrock islets scattered in the water surrounded by the deciduous brush and trees of a New England forest. 

We see several mallards, a coot, a pair of pied-billed grebes, and one greater yellow legs.  It is an entirely pleasant trip in the smallest of places.  We talk about how nice it would be to canoe through a long chain of these little ponds.  We imagine that there is such a place.

She tells me how glad she is to have her favorite paddle again, one that I made for her.  We paddle back and forth and round and round, along the shoreline and weaving through the islets until we've seen everything a dozen times from a dozen different directions.

A Dry Hands Day

The wind is already up by the time I start my portage down to the harbor.  It is a stiff NW wind (out of the NW) that pushes me down the harbor toward the opening to Long Island Sound, where I won't go, but also to the opening to the day's destination, Gulf Pond.

I spot seven buffleheads just before the rusty bridge.  They are the first that I've seen this fall.  It is also the first really raw day, a temperature of 45 F backed up by 20mph of wind.  I think to myself that it is a dry hands day - one where you go out of the way to avoid sticking your hands in the water because it takes so long to get them warm again.

I count birds, except for gulls.  I don't have time to count gulls if I want to paddle anywhere.  A flock of 50+ ducks flush when I am 300 yards distance.  I have a hunch that they are black ducks, but I just can't ID them from this distance.

greater yellow legs

For no real reason that I am aware of, I remember a dream that I had last night, or the night before, or some other night.  I dreamed that I was canoeing with a paddle that was much too short.  I like to think that it has something to do with life.

clams at the base of the spartina grass

Bird count in Gulf Pond: 10 buffleheads, 2 Canada geese, 2 mute swans, 5 greater yellow legs, 2 king fishers, 2 mallards and 4 great blue heron...a bunch of unidentified ducks, some uncounted cormorants and gulls, of course.
Of note, there are no egrets, either snowy or great, and I do not spot any osprey, which have been a constant since I started canoeing in here a month ago.

 

 

 

Gulf Pond

 At times and at certain places, the wind almost dies.  The flag at the house nearest the rusty bridge hangs limp until I get there.  Then it stands back out.  I pass under and up through the flood tide current and head back into the harbor.  It is just barely possible for me to make distance into the wind, which is coming straight out of the harbor.  I duck in as close to the big boats as possible and once or twice, I push off of a piling with my paddle.  When the harbor narrows some, I cross to the east side and find relative protection from the wind, sneaking along the shore under docks until I get to a place to take out.

After the Storm

It is a cool sunny day with a stiff SW breeze.  I put in a full hour and some before high tide in the big marsh at the mouth of the Housatonic.  A hurricane came through three days ago and it is time to see what has changed in the marshes.  Big storms back in Seattle always changed wildlife behavior for a few days as well as having longer term effects on the landscape.

The marsh is a surprise.  What is surprising is that the marsh appears unchanged in anyway.  While my town is busy removing downed trees, putting power lines back up, and removing or dealing with a few dozen unrepairable beachfront homes, the marsh goes on as if nothing happened.  The browning marsh meadow grass is as it was with not a blade broken.  During the height of the storm it must have laid flat on the surface, until the storm surge swallowed it by several feet.  I expected to find debris in the marsh as well, but that is not here either.  In fact, the marsh seems cleaner than ever.

I head into the wind until I reach the sand spit that guards the mouth of the river.  I get out briefly and observe the flow patterns left on the sand and beach grasses from when the spit was submerged.  I follow this spit back toward the beach houses.  Here, they all seemed to have weathered the blow, although a few dumpsters show that there is some reworking to be done.  But these are the priciest of beach houses, the ones that are built high and strong with a sacrificial first floor.  Farther east in the older neighborhood, it is a different story.

I spot a kingfisher, about 40 black ducks, 4 mute swans, 6 cormorants, a pair of hooded mergansers, a pair of snowy egrets, 3 coots, and a total of 4 great blue herons.  I wonder where the birds were hiding when the storm came through.

Milford Point - the sand spit

When I finish for the day and I get out of the wind, the instant warmth on my face reminds me of how raw the winter wind will be on coming trips.  That warmth is a feeling that I remember from very long ago.  It is comforting.

The Unseen Treasure

I portage over to the harbor to put in on the steep rocky bank.  An osprey arrives and begins to hover...it drops with great control and pauses at 15 feet...then it dives into the water and comes up empty.

I'm heading to Gulf Pond once more, but this time with plans to get into Indian River.  The tide is dropping and there is enough room for me to pass under the rusty bridge, but the current is as strong as I've yet seen it.  I make very slow headway into it until I get to the bridge.  I reach up with both hands and grab the beams and hurl myself forward.

lower Gulf Pond - near high tide

In the pond, a heron sits on the osprey nesting pole and the feral parrots are making a racket at some distance west.  At the current tide level, I can paddle the edges of the spartina easily clearing the mud flats that are some 3 or 4 feet deep.  I hear a kingfisher in the distance and spot it some 300 yards off.  Some people have told me that I am eagle eyed, but I am not.  That kingfisher is nothing more than a blue-gray dot on the background of autumn leaves.  It is the way that the blue-gray dot moves that tells me it is a kingfisher.  It is a readable pattern not much different from a sheet of music or Morse code.  The trick is to learn the code and you learn the code by practicing the code.

the passage into Indian River

I find the Indian River, where it passes under the railroad, to be too fast to paddle against and a bit too deep to wade or portage, especially when there is no hurry.  So, I take some time to just sit, and every once in awhile, I go check the water level to see how it changes as the tide continues to drop.  When I figure the wading to be no more than knee deep, I nudge the canoe up against the left wall, grab the bow line, and step out onto the rocky bottom pulling the canoe behind.  At the far end, I get back in the canoe and give a strong shove to the wall and coast clear of the current.


It is a river. 

It winds in big bends through marsh grass and phragmites.   The bottom is silty mud, the shellfish are gone, but there are kingfishers and hawks and tiny crabs with one enormous claw as big as their body.  In a half mile or so I get to the I-95 bridge.  It is noisy. 

But here, the river changes and I come out of the underpass into a narrow tree lined river, lined with brilliant rust and orange leaves.  Even the water has a sparse carpet of leaves.  The banks climb higher as the river is incised into the rising ground.  The meanders tighten and come more frequently. 

this is surrounded by unseen shopping malls

This is one of those unseen treasures where everything seems wild and natural over the objections of highway noise.  I've been to places like this before.  Most people never know they exist, they would never think to look here.  I am not even sure of my location since there are no visible landmarks.

I turn around when I get to a log jam that would take too long for my day.  I return home wet to the knees and splattered with mud, just as it should be.