Plover Migration

We started early enough, heading downriver to the marsh before the coming heat of the day. The tide is coming in, but the flood current was still slow. It is sunny with little wind, and already nearing 70F with a prediction of 82F by early afternoon.

S wanted to see some birds, and the Wheeler is the best option right now - lots of bird and little driving.

I am a bit surprised not to see some Yellow Crowned Night Herons as we get to the marsh. We head up Beaver Creek, where I've seen many in the last few trips. Sure enough, we begin finding the YC's. By the time we paddle out we have sighted about 15 of them.

Red Wing Blackbirds are all about. We see some Mallards, but with the tide still low, our sight lines are short. We can't see across the top of the spartina and most of the Ducks are out in the middle of the grass away from the channel. 

Near the refuge launch, we spot the Swans with their 4 Cygnets. The male puts on a bit of a threat show, raising its wings over its back and pumping up a bow wave with powerful kicks of its big feet.

American Golden Plovers

 

We cross the marsh towards Nell's channel. Now, we spot a good number of Golden Plovers. The first dozen is gathered on a small piece of remaining high ground. As we continue, we keep spotting more, mostly in groups of 15 or 20, but occasionally solos. By the time we get to Nell's channel, I figure it to be about 75 Golden Plover. The Plovers migrate from South America to the Arctic where they nest. While many of them go up through the middle of the continent, we always get some each spring. Their return trip is over the ocean and I can't remember ever seeing any in the fall.

American Golden Plovers

Going up Nell's, we watch an Osprey harrass a couple Egrets and a Night Heron. No doubt, the nearby Osprey nest has recently hatched chicks, and anything that eats meat is being warned off.

Back in the river, we ride the flood current up to our start point.

Thunder

I put in at Indian Well, one of two possible starts for this section of the Housatonic. Downstream is a the 1870 Shelton Dam, and upstream is the Stevenson Dam, completed in 1919. The reservoir is quite small by modern standards and runs a current which can be quite noticeable during high water although today it is pretty much nonexistent.

It is cloudy, with a very light wind and a temperature around 70F. The weather report has a chance of thunderstorms and there has already been a couple of light sprinkles that did not last long. I head upstream with a plan of going dam to dam, taking in the entire section of the river.

About 30 minutes out, it begins to rain hard enough that I dig out the rain gear that lives in the bottom of my pack. It rarely sees the light of day. After a few minutes, it is raining enough to be called a hard rain. I don't mind and in fact I enjoy rain paddling, up to the point where electricity comes into play. Much of this trip is in between high ridges, but as I approach one of the open areas, I hear a couple of distant thunders. I decide to head back where I have a bit more shelter. The rain increases and there is more thunder, so I land on a small beach. There is 200 feet of forested ridge above me, so I feel reasonably protected. I bail some water out of the canoe and then roll it over, as otherwise, I will have to bail it again when the storm passes. I stand on the beach and watch it rain. It dumps like crazy for about 10 minutes - all that is missing is hail. We get some excellent rolling thunder. Rolling thunder is common here. It will start far off to one side and the rumble will travel across the sky to the other side. It is easy to see where the old folktale of elves bowling in the sky came from.

All in all, it makes for a surprisingly good canoe trip.

I'm onshore for 45 minutes before the thunder moves off. As I continue, the rain stops and the river becomes glassy smooth.

The last mile before the Stevenson Dam can have a stiff current when they spill water out of the next reservoir. I'm curious to see what the river is doing with the recent heavy rain. I pass the shelf without any trouble (this is a shore to shore shallow shelf where the current gets accelerated, enough so that at times it is impassable in an upstream direction). Just as the dam comes into view, there are three horn blasts, no doubt signaling the release of water. Sure enough, one of the gates has been opened and a good dump of water is starting. With that, this is a good point to turn back.

 

 

A Good Day

I'm putting in at Pilgrim Landing, the easiest start for Lord Cove. D, who lives right across the street, is out mowing his lawn. He's an interesting guy - we've talked many times before, and he publishes a nice magazine about the Connecticut River, "Estuary". And yes, I am a subscriber. We have a good talk, a little about Lacrosse, which he coaches, and a little about the good spring migration in the Wheeler Marsh.

The morning fog has risen to become a low overcast which will not, for very long, hold its own against the sun. It will soon be sunny and about 75F with a moderate wind out of the south. The tide is almost at its peak, so the return trip will have some current behind me. 

It is a good day.

Before I pass the first point, no more than a couple hundred yards, an Osprey and a mature Bald Eagle come into the scene, in full territorial squabble. The Eagle, obviously the aggressor, retreats to a tall evergreen. The defending Osprey makes several noisy swoops to get the message across, and then returns to its nest on nearby Goose Island. Halfway through Goose Bay, I spot a pair of mature Baldies sharing a perch. They split up, but eventually both head up to the next bedrock finger. (The cove has a distinctive series of narrow tapering bedrock ridges that descend off of the hillside into the water, with a few hundred yards between each ridge). When I catch up, they are once again sharing a branch.

 It is a good day.

This marsh was overgrown with phragmites and a few years ago the government came in and eradicated over most of the marsh. Now, there are 2 to 3 foot high cattail spears filling in the whole area, as it should be. Nesting is clearly on. It seems that every time an Osprey flies by, it is being harassed by a Red Wing Blackbird. I spot several Marsh Wrens, doing the pop-up and flutter down while singing dance. They seem to have just arrived as I see no nest building from them.

It is a good day.

I follow the east shore, taking in some of the tiny bays and backwaters that push in against the hillside. In time, I get up to the big Eagle nest that stands almost in the farthest reaches of the cove. I don't see any activity in the nest, but it is still possible that there are eaglets tucked down in the cover. The adults are not in sight. I head back out following the west side of the marsh, again checking out the dead end side channels.  I pass under a very large Bald Eagle, and by the size, it should be the female that belongs to the nest. It really is obvious just how large she is. Every year that I've observed her, she has raised 3 Eaglets to fledge. I spot 3 pairs of Canada Geese with a total of 10 goslings.

The Big Female

It is a good day.

I finish with six Eagle sightings, all matures, and it is probably four individuals.

It was a good day.

What's Up in the Marsh

Like usual, I head down from under the highway bridge. It is peak high tide with cloudy skies, a temperature of 60-ish and a light wind that has no effect other than to cool the skin. 

At the top of the marsh, the Swan is busy adding a level to her nest to keep the eggs out of the water. I head, first, up into Beaver Creek. I have spotted a half dozen Yellow Crowned Night Herons almost right away, and at the next bend, just when I'm thinking I've seen a dozen, one that I am watching flushes and four more that I didn't see take off. Almost all the way in, I find a Black Crowned Night Heron up in a tree. It is my first BC of the spring. I see fewer Black Crowns in general, which I don't think reflects the actual population. The two birds have different feeding and perching habits, and I suspect that my canoe habit dovetails better with the Yellow Crowns than with the Black Crowns. 

Black Crowned Night Heron

I head to the Central Phragmites Patch and while retrieving some junk, I notice that the nearby Swan nest is empty, in fact, I can't actually pick it out from the rest of the marsh. But, the resident Swan comes out from behind a stand of reeds to see what I am up to. I suspect that there are brand new cygnets in there, and I back away.

The third nest, near the Refuge boat launch, is empty as well. The adult pair is about 50 yards away herding four small cygnets, which are probably less than a week old.

Great Egret

Otherwise -
With the high tide, I can scan across the top of the spartina, which is no more than 8 inches tall. There are quite a few Mallards out away from the main channels. It's easy to spot their heads in the grass. They are not in flocks, but in pairs.
Least Terns are back. I spot four during the trip.
I see just 3 Yellow Legs. On my previous trips I have seen flocks of 12-20 at a time. So, it seems that they have headed up into Quebec for nesting.
Over near the bottom of Nell's channel, a Black Bellied Plover flies by. The Willets are around here as well, by the sound of their calls.
There are more Osprey in the area than can be accounted for by the local known nests. Most of them are on the east side, either in the trees or soaring high overhead.

Yellow Crowned Night Heron

Midway through the two hour paddle, the skies clear and the wind shifts, now coming out of the south. So, I have a nice tailwind as I paddle out.

Lover's Leap

I put in just below the four span truss bridge, the only bridge for ten miles in either direction. The day is overcast, something like 70F, and with a very light wind coming down the river. There is an unusual number of people about in either fishing kayaks or pontoon boats. There is a kayak fishing tournament and the pontoon boats are taking part in river clean-up day. 

I cross the river and follow the river-right shoreline. Just a third of a mile up, I find a white tail deer tucked in along the bank. It's missing some hair on the side and it doesn't flee when I get close, so it might be sick. If it's still there when I return, I'll call it in to the state. Not much farther on, I spot four Canada Geese herding six goslings. The young are probably 10-14 days old. And, a half mile up from them, I find a pair of Geese with 3 goslings that can't be more than a few days old. Otherwise, I spot a Kingfisher here and there and a Great Blue Heron once in awhile. I do flush a second white tail. It takes two leaps up the hill before stopping to see what I am. I pass by and it returns to the midday business of digesting whatever it ate this morning. Deer bed move and feed in the mornings and evenings, and they bed down in midday, focusing their energy and blood circulation on digesting the rather woody material they're eating.

I find a Swan nest on the island just below Lover's Leap.

Lover's Leap is a narrow gorge in a high ridge that the river passes through. Before this section of the river was dammed, there was a ten foot waterfall somewhere in the gorge. This made for a productive fishing spot and the local archaeology shows that Native Americans lived in this locale starting not too long after the Ice Age glaciers retreated. I don't know where the actual sites are, but the terrain would be suitable both below and above the gorge.

I paddle through the gorge and as far as the mouth of the Still River before turning back. Just across from the gorge, I stop and chat with a guy who is trying to keep Geese off of his shoreline grass. He has some fake Owls that don't work - I fill him in on just how good birds are at recognizing other birds. Of course, Canada Geese aren't particularly afraid of Owls or Eagles because tangling with an adult Goose is a good way to break a wing, which is, of course, a fatal injury. I continue on down following the river-left shoreline.

I get a lucky spot, finding an immature Bald Eagle in a tall and wide background of forest. 

I cross the river to check on that first deer, but it has moved off, a bit of a hopeful sign.

Second Choice

I headed to Essex where I could mix some big river and big marsh paddling. But, standing at the water's edge, it was clear that the wind was something double the weather service prediction, and I would have a grueling paddle no matter which direction I headed. I loaded back up and headed off to my windy day paddling spot. (The wind was in fact double and then some - 18mph gusting to almost 30)

After my small detour, I put the canoe into the Mattebasset, in the usual spot. The water was lower than I've seen it in some time, having had several spells of high water this winter. It was more or less at a normal level. I took stock on the idea that I've been in here when the water was a dozen feet higher than it is today. There is little wind.

This is the typical scene in the Mattebesset

The Mattabasset is a placid river passing through bottom land forest, mature swamp, and open freshwater marsh. It's only problem is that it isn't long enough, but that is a common issue with small Connecticut Rivers. There is a small current today, which is about as strong as it ever gets - it's nothing to fret over.

The day is overcast with a filtered sun and a temperature in the low 70's. There's no wind in the forest and very little in the open marsh. It is a pretty fine day for paddling. I spot a few Great Blue Herons, and hear a good number of song birds, which are difficult to locate with the trees leafing out.

About half of the known beaver lodges look abandoned - piles of sticks without the binding mud, but not yet collapsed. The Point Lodge looks like it might be in use, but it looks a bit haggard. The big lodge just above the last bend before the mouth of the river looks solid. But, when I head up the Coginchaug, the Big Lodge looks abandoned having lost its mud and some of its height. The unusually frequent flooding this winter probably convinced the colonies to seek better living locations. Even with the couple of lodges that looked lived in, what I noticed was a lack of the little signs. I don't find any left over peeled branches or fresh gnawing. All of the beaver signs like chewed trees are silt covered. I get up to the power lines on the Coginchaug before finding two small scent mounds.

This is the typical scene in the Coginchaug

 
I turn back and head out when I get to the first log jam on the Coginchaug.

Chipuxet

We put in at the bottom of Worden Pond, an egg shaped and shallow body of water in the middle of the swamp that is known as western Rhode Island, although I suppose that Rhode Island is so small that most people don't think of it as having a "west". It has been some time since M was out with me in the canoe, so it seemed a good idea to go somewhere she'd never been. 

The day is mostly cloudy with a temperature of about 60F. An afternoon South wind of something under 10mph is predicted.

We follow the east side of the pond for about a mile and half to where the Chipuxet River enters. This is a trick of colonial era thinking, I imagine, as when the same river leaves Worden Pond, it is the Pawcatuck River. Anyway, I have been here before, having come down the Chipuxet and knowing enough then to go out into the lake so that I would be able to recognize the river mouth, all 20 feet of it, amongst a shoreline of low and featureless swamp shrubs if I should approach from the south. I find the entrance right away although we're not d-sure until we've paddled in about 75 yards. 

This lower part of the Chipuxet is very narrow with hardly any straight sections. It is a busy and somewhat slow paddle. We start seeing Great Blue Herons, a lot of Great Blue Herons. We might be flushing some of them, but mostly they are taking off well before we can be seen. Of course, there are constant Red Wing Blackbirds, some Goldfinches and a few Mallards. We also regularly pass a beaver lodge and several fresh scent mounds. The first beaver dam requires both of us to step out. It is only a couple inches high, but it is solidly built. The second dam we manage to get half way over, so that only I need to step out.

When we get up to the first road bridge, I can see that the water is about a foot higher than when I've ben here before. We duck under the bridge and head up the third of a mile to Thirty Acre Pond, which is held back by an excellent beaver dam that is 2-3 ft in height. It has been here for many years.  That is far enough and we turn back, both of us noticing just how much current there is as the canoe glides with moderate speed through the narrow channel.

The Dam at Thirty Acre Pond

The wind has come up while we were in the swamp. It doesn't count for much there, but it dows at Worden Pond.  It is blowing straight out of the south and the shallow pond has a good harsh chop to it. We follow the shoreline fairly close both to get some shelter and to stay in the shallows as the water is still fairly cold. An immature Bald Eagle overflies us. We have a mile and half to go into the wind, which is definitely in the 15 to 20 mph range. It's a good workout.