East River

I set out from the old stage ford, the first point above the sea where there is shallow water and solid ground on both sides of the river. The sky is sunny with a temperature climbing through the 50's and there is a light wind.  The tide is about 2 hours short of high, so the water is deep enough that I don't have to mind the boulders in this upper section.

This is a quiet time as far as birds go, but the autumn foliage makes up for it.  Fallen leaves float by the thousands on the river.  Once in awhile, a leaf will wrap itself on the bow of the canoe.  The silent motion of the hull takes on a spitting patter.  All it takes is to cross over a cattail leaf, reed or thin stick and the offending leaf is wiped away, the pattering ends, the silence returns, but only for a few moments.  I notice that almost all the leaves are oak and I do not spot a single maple leaf during the entire nine miles.

A pair of Yellow Legs

I pass a hunter as he retrieves his Goose decoys at the first bend below the Clapboard Hill Bridge.  I'm not sure if this is a legal hunting area as it is not far from some houses.

I take the river all the way to the confluence with the Neck River.  There, I turn up the Neck, then Bailey Creek, then use the Sneak to return to the East River and continue back up river.  I am back to the start in a bit under 3 hours, a good steady paddle on an exceptional day.

Wandering

Upon waking there was a thin hazy fog with what appeared to be clear sky above, atmospheric conditions with a great amount of atmosphere.

I put in under the highway bridge, again, not wanting to spend any time driving to another location.  the tide was very high and just about to peak and by the time I set the canoe in the water, it was mostly cloudy with a light west wind.

I cross the river and head up into the quad islands, taking the channel between Karting and Peacock Islands, crossing to and circling Long Island before returning to the west shore and paddling down around Peacock again.  The wandering figure eight with no particular goal felt like the best way to go.  The sun broke through occasionally, lighting the golden spartina to brilliance.  As for wildlife, a mouse swam the narrow Karting/Peacock channel and I flushed a Great Blue Heron.  

I recrossed the river and headed down to the marsh.  The tide was high enough that I could not duck under the long dock just above the marsh.  I spot a Tern, noting that it has been more than a month since I have seen one.  It is one of the medium sized Terns, although I cannot identify which one.  I headed up Beaver Brook, but wandered off again taking the high tide shortcut over to Cat Island. That route starts obvious, but then closes in about 75 yards from the island requiring a paddle through the flooded spartina.  

Cat Island ahead

I head to the Central Phragmites Patch.   Of course, there are no Black Crowned Night Herons at this time of year, but I flush about thirty Black Ducks.  I continue on through the narrow west passage, which has been blocked by a mat of floating reeds all summer.  Then, I search for one of the more difficult to find inner channels that heads upriver.  I spend some time bewildered and in what turns out to be a dead end.  That channel isn't hard to follow, if you can find the entrance.  The problem is that there are three or four identical openings to choose from, and only one works.

I spot four more Terns working the upper end of the marsh, and then head back up river. 

Back in the Canoe

It has been almost 3 weeks since my last trip. A nasty deep chest cold sapped any strength and lung crud takes rest, no way around it.

I put in under the highway bridge for a short trip through the marsh.  The tide is still high, although it has been dropping for 2 hours.  The watermark on the river bank is about a foot and a half above the current level.  The day looks positively autumn with a heavy overcast and the hardwood trees in full oranges and reds.  If the sun was out it would be as brilliant as the inside of an exploding box of crayons.

I head into the Nell's Island maze, flushing five Great Blue Herons once I am in about a hundred yards.  The spartina is standing tall and gold in color. They were congregated about 50 feet to the side of the channel, out of sight due to the standing spartina.  It is an easy passage with only one surprise, the large drift log that has blocked the easiest route for about a year is gone.  I don't know whether it drifted off or was towed away by hunters - sometimes big logs show up or disappear from inner channels after having been stuck for months and it is a bit hard to believe that high water alone moved them. 

Coming out of the bottom of the maze I see several fishing boats out in the main channel.  They are the only other boats out, maybe ten or twelve total, and they are all working oyster boats.

I cross to the east shore, spot several Yellow Legs and a pair of Mute Swans.  Heading up toward the inner channel, I flush three dozen migratory Canada Geese and a half dozen Black Ducks. 

The tide is nearing low as I head back up river and the current that opposes my progress is light.  Still, I follow the shore closely where I can make use of the eddies and slack water.

Pequabuck

I headed to the Pequabuck River, which I haven't been to in a bit over a year.  It is cloudy, and mid 60's with little wind.

The put-in is on a steep bank that looks more problematic than it actually is due to some old rip-rap that creates good solid footing at the water's edge. The water is higher than I've ever seen although it is far from being a problem.  The current is also moving faster than I've seen and looks, and turns out to be, a 3:1 ratio. That makes for some work going upstream, but it is completely doable. 

The Pequabuck is a small river, a tributary of the Farmington, which is a fraction of a mile downstream of my start point. The river is usually about 2 canoe lengths in width and it is a meander-fest with hardly any straight sections.  The paddling is finicky with sharp bends in current every 30 or 40 yards.  At most bends, the current grabs the bow and fights the turn.  Sometimes it is easiest to head to the far bank and let that current push the stern around.  I flush several Wood Ducks and push a Great Blue Heron upstream.  Herons seem to be territorial when one is feeding it will often fly short hops ahead of me until, finally, circling wide around and returning to near where I first saw it.  

A beaver dove off the bank - a big splash.  Although I did not see it, the splash was too big for a muskrat, too fast for a turtle and the critter stayed submerged... beaver.

Leaves are mid-way into changing, especially the maples that are farther back from the river.  Catalpa trees grow at the bank and they are still green.  Catalpas are twisty trees with hardly any straight limbs and when they fall into the river they form a messy tangle to get through.

The fast water at the Route 6 bridge requires a 75 yard wade, just as it always has in lower water.  Fortunately, the bottom is firm and sandy.  I get another 2/3 mile before running into a pair of messy blow-downs.  It's the same high point from my last trip.  I have to remember next time to bring a saw.

Due to the twisty nature of the river, the 3:1 ratio doesn't quite work out.  It's just not possible to speed down the river with the tight turns at each bend.  I continue past the put-in down the convergence with the Farmington.  Collecting a mussel shell from the shallows, I note how cold the river is.  I've been in tidla waters on my last several trips and the big ocean water cools off much slower than the inland fresh water.

 

In the Wheat

Yesterdays wind and rain start to abate as morning progresses.  I put in at the peak of high tide, about 1:00, and head across the bottom of the marsh, which at this tide level is open water with sparse patches of spartina scattered about.  The water is high enough that I can easily paddle through the grass if need be. Flooded as it is, there are almost no birds in sight for the distance, a bit short of a mile. I see just 2 Cormorants on that leg. The water is too deep for any of the wading birds.

I head into the Maze, a more intimate spot and a more likely place to spot birds. I find and take a narrow side passage that I haven't used in a few months. Up ahead, a good number of Egrets and Great Blue Herons take flight.  I'm too far off to have caused that and I wonder if there is someone else in here.  They've taken off from the usual hang out near the big drift log.  As I near, I spot a bunch of Snowy Egrets that were better hidden in the tall grass.  I figure the count to be about 50-60 Egrets, of which maybe 40% were Snowys, and about 10 Great Blue Herons.  It's a lot of large birds in a small area.

By this time, the predicted diminishing wind has undiminished into a steady 15mph gusting into the 20's.  I'll cut the trip short as I am starting to get pushed around.  I head in to the Central Phragmites Patch where I flush three mature Black Crowned Night Herons.  Note that I have not seen a single Yellow Crowned Night Heron today or in the last week or so.

I sit and write my notes at the Phragmites Patch.  

Listen to the wind blowing through the grass.

The marsh looks like a wheat field with the spartina gold and waving in the wind. 

Autumn has arrived

Windy weather and a day or two of being under the weather kept me off the water for a bit.  Today comes with canoe weather - sun, a light wind and a 70F temperature.  I take my getting out, but it seems that I'll have the very high tide timed well enough.

I put in on the Housatonic under the highway, then cut across beneath the drawbridge and head up river through the four islands.  The water is near slack and stays that way for about 2 miles. My tide timing isn't ideal and an opposing current starts growing as I near Fowler Island.  The last mile up river is against a fairly strong current. I spot an Osprey near Baldwin Landing. I often say that a few Osprey stay late in the year, but I really don't know if they stayed, or if the birds are migrating late from places farther north.  Anyway, there are usually a few Osprey around right up until winter.  A short distance further up and I flush an immature Bald Eagle, which I managed to paddle directly beneath without seeing.  

I cross the river and ride a following current back.  Unfortunately, a wind starts blowing upriver, which almost negates the effect of the current.  It is, however, no problem as it is such a fine day and I have most often had the river to myself.  

Cutting around the back side of the Quad Islands, I spot a pair of Great Egrets, which take to the air and head off as I near.   

Back to the Great Swamp

I coax M to go with me to the Great Swamp.  I guarantee that it does not take much convincing.  

The high will be 60F today with a chance of showers, although we should be off the water well before the rain arrives.  The sky is overcast and there is a light East wind.  The water level is a somewhat higher than normal, especially for this time of year, but the flow is all within the banks.

We have a nice talk with a couple women that have come down to the put-in, which is at the end of a quarter mile dead end dirt road.  One of them fills me in on the history of the quarry that you pass by on the way in, and also on a cabin that once was on Pine Island - built by a few WWII veterans that used it as their own art center.

We try our luck upstream, crossing one beaver dam and not getting much more than a quarter mile before coming up against a log jam that I didn't want to mess with.  That is a normal occurrence when paddling upstream of the start.  Sometimes it's a go, sometimes it ain't.  We turn around and head downriver.

Autumn is already here and the trees are going orange and red and the cattails have busted open, 

The upper section of the river is tight and twisty, but it mostly away from any trees that can fall and block the route. That is why we started at this upper put-in. Having not been in the marsh since May, I wanted to check out the conditions without dealing with downed trees that are more common in the lower half of this section.  

We  cross three low beaver dams on the way and continue down to the mid-point.  For a few years, there has been some downed trees to deal with near the halfway point and I wanted to check on the status. The tree tangle above the bridge has pretty much disappeared and the blocking log below the bridge has sunk below the surface.  The big jam farther down which has to be portaged is still there.  Someone has been cutting on it, but it will take a lot more cutting to finish the job.  With that, we head back.

Our bird count is a few Wood Ducks, a couple Great Blue Herons, a Hawk and a flock of Blue Jays.  It's not much, but this is the quiet time when birds from the North haven' arrived and the summer birds have headed South, at least that is the way I figure it.