Tuesday, March 18, 2014

First Osprey

a creek that feeds the Quinnipiac River

Everytime I've gone this way, I've passed the mouth of that inlet, thinking that it can't go far.  But today, I turn in there and within a hundred yards I am rewarded with a familiar but unexpected call.  The whistling draws my eyes up to an osprey standing with a fish in its talons at the top of a dead snag.  It seems early for an osprey, with the day in the low 30's, but there it is.

osprey

At the first bend, a pair of ring neck ducks swim off with a speed and ease that appears almost supernatural.  From the water up, not one feather so much as twitches as they disappear behind the bend.  I watch for them as I take my turn around that bend, but they are gone, replaced by a waving white flag - a rather dark white tail deer ambling away into the brush.



A few more bends, maybe a half mile at most, and I spot two more white tails as they come down to the waters edge for a drink.  I nudge the bow of the canoe onto a submerged log to hold me in place and I watch until they finish and walk back into the forest.

white tail deer
I turn back when I get to the first log that would require me to get out and lift the canoe over.  Back at the river I continue upstream...scare up quite a few wood ducks...pass the wild apple tree and the ogre...pass the New Haven inuktuk...up to where the river starts to become narrow and where it collects downed trees in mid current...to a silty bank where I eat my lunch.
I don't go up as far as I can.  I just go as far as I need to.  It is a beautiful day.


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