Snowy Egret Day

I set out early in the afternoon, perhaps a short hour after high tide. But, today is a higher than average high tide, so I have plenty of time to work my way through the marsh.  I start at the refuge launch, which is right in the marsh. This way, I avoid the Seadoo moron fest that occurs on Friday afternoons.  

It is about 80F with a pleasant light wind from the SW.  Although there was a predicted chance of afternoon thunderstorms, the threat has gone around us, which is not unusual.  

Crossing the bottom of the marsh is typically bird-quiet at high tide.  I flush a Night Heron here and there.  Then I take the side channel to Nell's Channel upriver.  This side channel runs at a diagonal.  It is almost as wide as Nell's, but leads (coming down river) into the shallower internal marsh.  

After one misstep, I get into the maze. I start flushing NIght Herons and Mallards every 50 yards or so. When I get to the rootball, one of the only landmarks inside Nell's Island, a bunch of Egrets and Night Herons flush.  It might be 2 dozen birds total.  I make my way down and back into Nell;s Channel and turn upriver.

Nell's Channel is usually kind of quiet, but it seems that the Snowy Egrets are beginning to flock, and at one of the side inlets, I pass 3 dozen Snowy Egrets all collected within about 50 yards of shoreline.

I head to the top of the marsh, then down the side sneak that leads to the Central Phragmites Patch, then into the main outside channel. Egrets and Night Herons are finally beginning to perch in the trees on Cat Island.   

I head down the outer channel to my launch point.  

The Shephaug

I put in on Pond Brook for a trip up to the cascades at the head of the reservoir.  It is a quiet day, even the leaf blowers have taken a break.  It is in the 70's, with a very light wind and a partly sunny sky.  

I hug the shore as usual.  Mostly, this is because most of the interesting stuff happens where ecological patches meet. Here, one patch is the river and the other is the forested hillsides.  The birds here are on the shoreline as with the Great Blue Herons, or perched in the trees overhanging the river as in the Osprey, or soaring along the hillside with a clear view of the river... the Bald Eagles. The family of Mallards that I pass are dabbling in the weeds that grow in the shallows.   

This is one of the finer "lake" paddles in the area.  Although it is a river, the dam downstream makes it appear as a lake.  There are scattered houses, but most are high up on the hillside and much of the land along the lake is forest preserve - either state forest or Nature Conservancy or something of the sort.

I spot 2 immature Bald Eagles and one mature that flushes while I am staring at a Great Blue Heron.  I'll end up counting several Great Blue Herons and maybe 4 Osprey. The Osprey were actively fishing. 

I pass a few fishing boats along the way, almost all of them drifting motors off near the shallows where they might find a bass.

I pause briefly at the cascades before heading back out. 

Birdwatch Part 2

 It is another fine day with sun and a light SE wind coming up the river, and the temperature will stay in the 70's.  S joins me.  We are in no hurry with the tide peaking about half past ten.

We set out for a second trip into the Wheeler, just because the bird watching is currently so good. The trip down to the marsh is on slack water.  A barge heads out of the upper entrance as we arrive.  It is rebuilding a dock that the winter ice pushed over.  We take a clockwise route, heading into the inner channel that leads to the Central Phragmites Patch.  Flush a few Great Egrets and Yellow Crowned Night Herons as we go.  

We quietly approach the phragmites patch.  Yesterday, there were a good many Night Herons, but they were on the far side of the patch and flushed some distance from us.  Then, 2 Black Crowned Night Herons, another and another.  A total of 8 mature Black Crowns flush from the patch.

We back out and head down the east side.  As with yesterday, no birds perching in the the trees.  Then we head across the bottom of the marsh, staying within the spartina islands as the wind is rising.  With the tide still high, the route across the marsh is birdless.  

I make a couple wrong turns, the high tide changing the remembered view, but we get to Nell's Channel with little time lost.  Then, we head into the Maze.  We start flushing birds - Yellow Crowned Night Herons, Great Egrets and a good number of Snowy Egrets, and one Great Blue Heron.  We are talking and I miss a turn.  I haven't been misplaced in the Maze for quite some time.  It takes three attempts before I get us back on track.  Fortunately, the root ball with the failed Osprey nest can be seen, if one knows where to look.  It is the only landmark worth a shit for finding the clear route through.  We miss one more turn, then back on track through the narrow exit, I miss the last turn and take the longer exit into Nell's Channel.  There is something reassuring knowing that after dozens of trips through the maze, I can still misplace myself.  

With that, we head up the river, current against us, but a growing breeze behind. 

Paddling with a Friend

It is a fine day with plenty of sun, temperatures in the 70's and a light wind coming up the river.  I round up my friend, A, and we set out from under the highway for a tour of the marsh.  A likes to bird watch and is familiar with the marsh, but mostly from land.  I give a A a quick paddling lesson, and then we set out. The tide is near high and will start falling during the trip.

By the time we pass the drawbridge, A has the paddling down pretty good.  

We enter Nell's Island through the upper channel and in short order, begin flushing birds.  It is a lot of Night Herons, Great Egrets and Mallards, but we also flush a few Great Blue Herons that were standing close to each other.  All the way through the maze we have birds either flushing or flying past.

Coming out of the maze, we head up to Milford Point.  But, with the tide high, many of the birds that might be seen here in lower water are not around.  It is a quiet leg across to the east shore.  

Hoping to find Night Herons perched in the east side trees, we get blanked.  It happens.  So, I turn us into the almost invisible gap that leads towards the Central Phragmites Patch.  I warn A that this is a particularly good spot to find Black Crowned Night Herons, probably because of a small patch of slightly higher ground where the phragmites grow.  We do flush about 20 Night Herons, but they rise up from the far side of the patch. As we turn back, I spot a Harrier, which obliges us by staying nearby until we get out into the open where A can eyeball the bird with the binoculars.  It's a good sighting.  Harriers are common, but mostly when the Osprey are not nesting.  My guess is that Osprey eggs and young are prey for Harriers, so the Osprey won't tolerate their presence. 

With that, it is time to head back up river.  It has been a very good birding trip and the only thing left is to come back at lower tide to show A how different it can be. 

 

Breaking the Rules

I am occupied during the morning and set out early in the afternoon.  Normally, a late start means paddling with the motorboat types, but it is overcast and therefore, forbidden for motorboat drivers to leave shore.  I head down to the marsh on very calm air, seeing only one other boat in that mile of river.

Short Billed Dowitcher

It is low tide, or thereabouts.  I did not check the tide table close enough to exactly remember the timing.  I head into the marsh, paddling east through the upper channel.  Great Egrets, a couple Osprey, and a couple Short Billed Dowitchers guard the entrance along with numerous Yellow Legs.

 Halfway down the east side of the marsh is shallowest point, which is not passable at most low tides.  Not remembering the tide timing, I check for the current by pausing to look at any grass growing in the water.  At this location, if the current is flowing in my direction, the marsh is filling.  I keep moving and finally pass over the shallowest section, where I also pick up a light current in my direction.  All good, as long as I stick to the correct channel, I can complete the circle.  

There has been a good number of Yellow Crowned Night Herons, which is no surprise at this time of the year. Coming across the marsh, I find a couple dozen Laughing Gulls feeding on a school of small fish in the shallows.  I spy a Clapper Rail as it sneaks back into the spartina, and there is a flock of a dozen Snowy Egrets back up in one of the side channels.  The gnats are particularly annoying in this section, a result of warm calm air.

I head back via Nell's Channel finding a second Clapper Rail on the exposed mud flats up one of the side channels.   

Wild Rice Looksee

I didn't sleep well, but the day is far too nice to not make use of.  It will be calm and somewhere near 80F with blue sky that should eventually become cloudy.

I put in at the bottom of Salmon Cove.  It is a long-time favorite, a freshwater tidal area with limited development and little motorboat traffic.  Swamp, marsh, forested hillsides, the cove and the rivers that enter the cove have it all.  One other reason to come here is to check on the wild rice crop.  

A few years back, the Connecticut River flooded during mid-summer.  An unusual timing for a flood, Salmon Cove and Salmon River backed up as a result.  The flood lasted well over a week with water levels 8 to 10 feet above normal.  This flooded the annual wild rice crop, which never went to seed.  Wild Rice is actually a grass, and needs to reseed itself every year.  The following year, most of the dense patches of wild rice were completely absent.

As I head into the cove, an immature Bald Eagle overflies me above my right shoulder.  It takes a perch in the tall snag up ahead where the cove turns in.  

It is about the most peaceful day in here that I can remember.  The water is near glassy and there is no one else in the entire cove. I follow the east shore up to the Moodus River.  

Moodus beaver dam

The tide is out and the water shallow, but not so much to be a problem.  I head up the Moodus, hearing the sound of rushing water ahead.  I know from past trips that the rushing water is a beaver dam.  This dam is submerged when the tide is up, but standing proud a foot or foot and a half right now.  The beaver built this dam to hold back tidal water so that there would be a steady pond depth.  It doesn't need to be any taller than it already is - the pond refills twice a day and never runs shallow.  There are a couple similar dams in the area, and those dams are not on flowing rivers like this one.  Anyway, I have no reason to cross the dam as there is a second more difficult dam/deadfall to cross and less than a third of a mile of paddleable river.  

Pond Brook wild rice - eventually, the rice will fill in right
up to where the canoe is.

I head out and cross the top of the cove and then make my way up the Salmon River. The next stop is Pond Brook.  The brook had a dense field of wild rice before the flood, and it was here where the effects of the flood were most noticeable.  The season following the flood, the only wild rice was in the upper edges.  Something more than an acre of wild rice disappeared.  Today, the rice is returning, but it is still not much more than half of what it had been.

I head up to the Leesville Dam, but the river runs shallow before the last bend.  With that, I turn back.

There is an Eagle perched again at the point near the bottom of the cove, but this time it is a mature Bald Eagle. It is a good ending to a good day.

Primordial Ooze

Yesterday's trip did the soul a lot of good.

It will be sunny and warm, although no oppressively so, but still, I picked a river where I could find shade when I wanted it.

The Mattebasset is one of my primordial ooze rivers. It is a mix of marsh, swamp and lowland forest, all of which gets flooded a few times each year. The current is slow no matter what the level, until one is a few miles upstream of the usual put-in. The banks are muddy as is the bottom in most places.  The deadfalls that lay along the banks are coated in a thin layer of silty mud that makes them look like they've been in place for a hundred years.  I keep my eyes out for fresh beaver sign, but find nothing - no scent mounds, no fresh gnaws.

Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons are working the shallows.  I spot a few Kingfishers and a couple Green Herons.  A couple of Osprey have flown over, and there is a young Hawk somewhere out in the trees making a racket near the Tepee Lodge site.

Wild Rice

Pickerel weed is still blooming, but wild rice has been added to the mix.  The wild rice stands tall above the cattails and lower marsh plants.  The top is part tassel, part worn out paint brush.  The grass seed that we call wild rice is hidden in that top.  When the seed is ripe, it'll shake loose.  It would be very difficult to harvest the wild rice in this marsh - one needs a better flooded crop.  But, it makes great bird food.

I paddle down to the big river and circle Wilcox Island - that's about a mile and a half.  It has been quiet all day.  Then, I head back the way I came.