The Anti-Anxiety Machine

I heard an osprey twice call out from a nearby tree as I started into the Elfin Forest.  I only spotted it as it took wing and crossed the marsh to perch in another tree some 200 yards off.  It had a good sized fish in its talons.  A few more bends in the tiny stream and I came across a female Wood Duck with a single duckling.  Woodies protect their young by ditching them and decoying with a faked injury the suspected predator.  They exceed expectations on the decoying often skittering along the water for a few hundred yards.  This Woodie with only one of her brood remaining has had a hard go of it.  I turn back and leave the deeper area of the Elfin Forest to her.  On my way out, I stop and watch the Osprey eat the fish.  Shreds of flesh and fish scales flutter down as it gently rips the fish apart with twisting head motions.

The first half hour of the paddle was one of distancing myself from the unfortunate events of the past week.  Pandemic, riots, protests and a president that can't do anything except make matters worse make a trip to the river all that more necessary.  In fact, my main way of maintaining contact with my distant friends, Facebook, has become nothing but an anxiety machine with far too much information and emotional distress.  I've had to cut FB use off as the only way to fix a broken anxiety machine is to power it of for awhile.

Exiting the Elfin Forest, a jetski speeds by well over the 6mph limit.  Across the channel, a guy in a pontoon boat gives the driver a more polite signal to slow down than the one I used.  But, this started a conversation and I find the two guys in the pontoon boat to be a pre-columbian archaeologist and a photographer.  We talk for a good twenty minutes.

Main Channel Eagle Nest (see below)

I head up the Osprey Channel.  I'd spotted one beaver lodge on the way down and figure it worthwhile to see how beaver were fairing up in this long dead end.  I find one new and well built lodge which is small enough that the pair living inside of it probably aren't producing young, yet.  A lodge can triple in size in a week or so if the beaver need more room.

Small Lodge in the Osprey Channel

I head down and out into the main river for my return.  A tailwind evens out the oncoming current.  I find a new eagle nest.  An Bald Eagle perched nearby flies off, but before I am out of sight another returns with a fish in its talons.  As it lands on the nest dinner causes a single Eaglet to pop up into full view.

Note Eaglet in Nest

Just about to Whalebone Cove I pass a guy in a canoe going down river.  Looks like a 16 ft Penobscot canoe.  He looks familiar and has a twisted kind of woodsie old timer thing going on.  I think I've seen him before, but I can't remember for sure.