O Cove

In the water early in the morning, birdsong over calm water and heading into the best section of the river, the last mile before it descends into a stretch of whitewater and downriver from where the chattering herds of rental canoeists exit, although this is far too early for them.  It's been a year and I forgot how nice this stretch is.

Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer...limbs of deadfalls rise out of the water, broken masts of storm tossed ships, ribs of paddle wheel steamboats blown to bits by boiler mishaps and not yet consumed by silt and settling.  Then comes the four trestle foundations, the remains of a real tragedy, a steam train that crashed through the wooden bridge dumping its passengers into a frozen winter night river.

 I missed the entrance to the O Cove, but the sharp bend 100 yards below turns me back.  It takes a short wade to enter.  A recent snag has fallen across the river almost right on top of the poorly maintained beaver dam that holds a few inches of extra depth in the old oxbow that is the cove.
The cove is decked with bright green frog moss. 

Several kingfishers scold my advance and as I proceed around the near perfect circle I stir up a few very vocal green herons.  Their call is a scratchy clucking and their flight is what I imagine a flying dinosaur to accomplish.  They seem most primitive when airborne.