Back from the "Meh"

The last ten days or so have been perfect for winter canoeing with light winds and moderate temperatures. Unfortunately, I was sidelined with the most recent mutation of covid. This version of the bug is particularly contagious even if not stronger than the last model. Mask up, because if you get it you will be sick for a solid week.

I put in at the Wheeler Marsh near the mouth of the Housatonic. After a couple weeks off, there was good reason to do a short, modest trip and get my paddling movement fine tuned. I started just before a high tide with the marsh well flooded such that staying inside "the lines" wasn't required. 

The spartina is still standing tall as our winter has been mild enough that the snowplows haven't had to come out. Winter spartina that hasn't been munched by heavy snow has the appearance of a wheat field at harvest time.

I head into the middle to follow a back channel upstream to the mouth of Beaver Creek. I flush a Great Blue Heron near the central phragmites patch, but otherwise there are few birds. With the marsh flooded such as it is, most of the waterfowl will be away from the canoeable passages. I flush a couple Black Ducks, which is normal. They seem to be the most skittish of the Ducks and often flush well before I can see them.

There's a Kingfisher at the mouth of Beaver Creek, and a woman wading hip deep in front of her house raking the mat of floating marsh reed. We greet each other, but I am not about to ask her what she is doing, mostly because I expect that I might have to point out that her house is situated on a large marsh. The tide is carrying little rafts of reed mat in one direction. When the tide changes it will come right back. Doing this in 40 degree water.... I dunno.

I flush two dozen Black Ducks in the creek. Farther in, I flush two dozen Mallards. This is always the order as the Black Ducks seem to keep a bit more distance from the houses that are farther up the creek. I spot two Hawks, but they are too high to be identified. On the way back out I spot two Harriers hunting low over the spartina. 

I head up an inner channel that parallels the larger Nell's channel and zigzag across the top of the marsh back towards my put-in. There are a good 75 Canada Geese toward the bottom of the marsh. 

The high water floated a good amount of debris to within easy reach. I return with a third of a canoe of plastic junk, which more than justifies the short trip. There is a Red Tail Hawk perched overhead when I take out.