Trap Tide

I set out from the Feral Cat Park just after a trap tide.  A trap tide is a high high tide that washes over the low islands in the river.  Any plastic or floating debris washes into the phragmite reeds and becomes trapped.  It's impressive how much is here.  I did a clean up in Union Bay and people told me that it would be dirty again soon.  This turned out not to be true.  Plastic survives a long time and what one sees may have taken several years to accumulate.  I collect nothing today...but my irritation is slowly building and one day soon when the water is a few inches lower I will go at it with a vengeance.

The river current has returned with the ebbing of the tide.  It is a hazy sunny day with near calm winds and temperatures that are warm for winter.  It is so pleasant that I pay no concern to the current and paddle where I want, even if it means heading into a stiff current.

I have a talk to give this evening and what I might say runs through my head as I observe and move through my surroundings.  In short order, I have enough to out-talk Fidel Castro.

No one would call this a great bird watching day.  I have flushed some black ducks and a nice flock of Canada geese, spotted a kingfisher and a Cooper's hawk.  But, it is the swans that are the most interesting.  The juices are beginning to flow.  A month ago they would have ignored me as long as I kept my distance.  Today, they eyeball me warily.  They don't raise their wings or duck their head low.  None of the powerful pulsing swim kicks or heading toward me, the stuff they do when mating time comes, but they watch me and follow me until I leave their area. 

I return to the Feral Cat Park just as the wind starts to rise.