Pettipaug

I start in Pettipaug's North Cove. The tide is going out, but the breach in the bar still has enough water to get through. It is a fine day and this being a Sunday, there will be little solitude, no matter where I might have gone.

Osprey - note that the Osprey can look straight ahead -
binocular vision is handy for diving attacks on fish

I cross the river straight away and head down. The shoreline from Hamburg Cove down to the first entrance to Lord Cove is excellent. The land is too low to allow anything other than a couple seasonal cabins, and those landowners have done an excellent job at removing invasive plants and replacing them with native species. Instead of a phragmites choked shoreline, it is a variety of shrubs, small trees and cattails. The shore is about half sand beach and half spartina bog stuff. There are several Osprey, as usual. There are a few nests, but some of the Osprey come up from downriver, where there are thirty or forty nests.

Once I get behind Nott Island, it gets quite peaceful as the big boats stay to the main channel on the far side. Once below the island, I do get bounced by a few wakes, but there is more than enough time to see them coming. I enter Lord Cove and circle Goose Island before heading back up river.

Snowy Egret - black bill, yellow rain boots

I head up past Ely's Ferry, and recross the river at the bottom of Brockway Island. Then, follow the shore down to the big marina where there is a good low tide entrance to the North Cove.