Nesting

As I approach the second rock island I spot a Canada goose near a boulder, head and neck laid low to the water, eye on me.  This is not a suggestion, but rather a guarantee of a nearby nest.  I continue ahead and the goose lifts its head high and swims off to my right making itself as obvious as can be.  I spot a small patch of white near the ground on top of the island.  In a few canoe lengths I can see the back of the goose, flattened low, neck and head low, only two inches of goose showing.  As the canoe coasts past I take a couple quick photographs.  I leave them to be.

Goose nest

Besides all of the excitement, I am pushing an immature bald eagle in short flights along the forested shoreline.  Then, I spot a mature bald eagle, and then a second mature.  As I leave the top of Goose Bay for the narrower marsh passages I spot all three of those eagles together in a tree.  The matures leave first, then the immature.  An osprey flies over quite high.  An egret flies up against the forest background, but that action is a 1/2 hour away by canoe.  I ponder why evolution would end up with a bird with such poor camouflage.  Perhaps to a fish an egret looks like a cloud.  There's always a good reason.

I end up in that farthest reach of the cove not too far from where Ely's Ferry Road cuts across the top.  I pass a solo goose, but if it has a nest mate nearby I am not smart enough to read the sign.  I continue in and in another 100 yards I spot an odd clump in the flattened dead cattails.  I spot the neck, low...lower than the body... another nest.  The goose remains motionless as I pass.

Goose nest

Again, I spot a mature bald eagle high in a tree.  On my way out of this dead end I stop to photograph it.  It flushes just as I bring the camera up, but it only flies 20 ft...to a mate and a nest perched in a pine tree and blending in so well that I missed it even though I was looking straight at it.

I watch for awhile as the eagle in the nest performs some sort of housekeeping that I cannot see clearly from the seat of a canoe.

Lords Cove, Connecticut River