An Easy Day in the Salt Marsh

S needed to sleep in, so we get a late start. The wind has come up some, enough so that the local marsh will be more work than either of us needs. At least, other than the wind, it is a perfect day for canoeing - sunny and mid 70's.

We put in on the Menunketusuck. The tide is still going out, but it is getting pretty low. Fortunately, the river is canoeable at low tide with the shallowest water right off of the put-in. If there is enough water to float the first 50 yards, there will be enough water everywhere.

We head down river through the salt marsh with a 10-15mph wind in our face. With the low tide, we don't have expansive views, but even so, it seems that there are not too many birds about. We spot a Snowy Egret on the way. I take us to the railroad bridge as there is, nearby, a popular perching spot where I usually see several of the large waders. It is a zero today. 

We head back and take the east fork. There we find ten Great Egrets and three Snowys in the marsh below Opera Singer Point. We head most of the way up the fork, until it starts to get shallow and narrow, and then turn around and head out. 

We saw about a dozen Yellow Legs, some smaller Sandpipers, a dozen Great Egrets, and four Snowy Egrets. Of note, we saw no Osprey or Eagles and no Little Blue Herons or Glossy Ibises. The birds that were here appeared to be eating well with lots of small fish and crab at the water's edge.

It was a very casual trip.

The Environmentalist Approves

I put in on Pond Brook, head down the cove that it has become, turn down river, and round the point to head up another river. It is sunny. It is calm. The water is as smooth as it could be. 

I don't see any birds until I am 45 minutes out. It is a flock of Mallards.

I get to the Moneybags's house. When I first paddled in here, this spot held a dilapidated building that might have been storage for some road or farm machinery. After Moneybags bought the lot, there was about a year of earth moving followed by building, more earth moving and more building. The Moneybags's built themselves a big ass house/mansion, kind of in a style that suggested that they had never been here. In fact, I've never seen anyone there except for grounds keepers. The window blinds are perpetually closed. The barbecue pit, the pool, and the patio unoccupied. Each summer a waterski boat, a pontoon boat, and two jet ski things arrive. They never move. They even put in a small beach, which washed away in the first big rain. They installed drain tiling and put the beach back in. There are no beaches in this part of the river - it is valley with steep glacial till hillsides. The shoreline is boulders and cobbles. The Moneybags's are one with nature. They have fake plastic Swans and a fake plastic fox to scare Geese away. They have those spinning wire bird scaring doohickeys on top of their boats. Today, there is a large flock of non-migratory Canada Geese at the Moneybags's estate. They are eating grass and pooping amongst the plastic fox and plastic Swans. A Gull perches on top of the pontoon boat, a quart of white bird shit splattered all over the navy blue fabric. The environmentalist in me approves.

I reach the cascades in an hour and a quarter - a record time, which is due to the calm water. Canoes do move faster in smooth water. There's not much water coming through the cascades today. I take a short break, then turn around and head out.

Quinebaug

My first trip to the Quinebaug was earlier this summer and it was time for a second visit.  Visiting a river is one thing, knowing it quite another, and it will take a lot more than 2 trips to know this one.

S joined me today. My records showed her to be overdue for a canoe trip. We put in at the Corps of Engineers ramp at the bottom of Long Lake. From there, it is a short paddle over to a tunnel that takes us under the highway and into Brimfield Lake. Then it is a half mile over to the mouth of the river. Long Lake is clear, but Brimfield is quite weedy. When I was here in June, there were no obvious weeds other than pond shield (I'm not sure what it is, but the leaf reminds me of pond shield) and pond lilies. 

The river also has a pretty good growth of weeds. Mostly it is the pond shield growth. It doesn't slow the canoe down and there is usually a clear open water path. Autumn is starting to show on the bordering shrubs and marsh plants with leaves hinting at tans and golds. The other difference that I notice is the large number of game trails leading to the water. I notice more beaver activity this time. I'm sure they were here in June, but this time I notice. We pass two broken dams, and then turning a bend not much higher, we find a new 2 foot high dam. It is new enough that a lot of the branches it is built from still have green leaves. It is an awkward crossing. I perch S on a small patch of firm ground at the end of the dam and then pull the canoe over. The dam is still quite narrow, probably because it is new and hasn't been reinforced too many times. 

We continue on up to Holland Pond, which is the end of any water big enough for a canoe. We've seen no one other than a woman with two toddlers on a patch of beach at the pond. After a short break, we turn and head back. 

We try to run the beaver dam, making it about halfway over, but with a quick step out and push from myself, we're on our way.

Things to Do

You know, there's always things that you should be doing. Over coffee and breakfast, I thought about the things I should be doing. And then, I loaded up my canoe and went canoeing, because I was wondering what I might miss seeing.

It is a very nice day, perfect for canoeing aside from a little more wind than is ideal. By the end of the trip, as I head back upstream, I should have the wind in my face and the tidal current at my back.

With the tide out, I keep my eyes peeled for Clapper Rails. The best place to look for them is on the mudflats between stands of spartina that serve for cover. I head down Nell's Channel and spot a Rail in one of the first mud flat openings. Then, I veer off of Nell's and take the Left of Nell's Channel Channel. There is a good number of Great Blue Herons and Snowy Egrets. The Snowys often feed by shuffling their feet on the bottom to kick up little edible critters. The low tide is perfect for them. 

Liquor bottle ca 1920 or earlier

I cut across over to Nell's as I get near Milford Point, and then return up Nell's. My short trip gets interrupted when I spot a bottle. It is 2 ft. down in a cut bank, so it can be used for estimating deposition. It's mold formed with large bubbles in the glass, and the glass is not particularly thick. It is embossed with the volume, 1qt. 9 fluid oz. Part of the cork is inside. It's probably not a beer or wine bottle, most likely a liquor bottle and no newer than 1920 (large glass bubbles are a pre-1920 thing). It dovetails right into my estimate of 50 years to the foot for deposition. 

Home Brewing bottle

I take my usual side route out of Nell's, and find another bottle. It is marked Home Brewing, Bridgeport. It is in a cut bank that appears to have settled. The bottle design should date it to the 1950's or 60's...and it should be a beer bottle. Right across the channel is another bottle, a liquor bottle from about the same period, but it is out of the bank, so it is useless for deposition.

Borden's milk bottle

I exit the shortcut and turn out toward the river...and spot another bottle. It is square, well embedded in the cut bank and about 15 inches deep. It is a Borden's milk bottle, with the "Borden's" printed on the glass. I have to do a little research, but I'm guessing it will be one of the last of the glass milk bottles - probably 1960's or so. 

From there, I power into the wind a mile back to my starting point.

Cattails

I put in at the Lieutenant River. Last time I came here, the lot was overloaded with a local kayak club. Paddling in a group of twelve or fifteen seems contrary to the whole idea of... whatever I'm doing. Anyway, there's no one else here, and there are several different routes to pursue, so one can burn a whole day. The tide is just about an hour into rising, so the water is low, but there isn't much tidal current, yet. The wind seems to be picking up, which I don't remember from the morning weather report. I head down and into the back channel of the Connecticut River.

Approaching the Watch Rocks, there is a Gull circling over a stand of trees and raising a hell of a racket. Getting closer, I spot the dark shadow in the trees - a young Bald Eagle. Maybe I'm the critical mass, but it flies off east toward the Duck River. The Gull and an Osprey chase it until it is out of sight. It seems like a good idea, so I paddle up the Duck River. I haven't been in here for several years, and it is as short as I remember it, ending at a culvert that might just barely have enough room for my canoe, at low tide. I decide to check the map later and see if the road portage is worthwhile.

I head back and down, but pull up short of the Back River. The wind is still increasing, and if it keeps growing, this will not be a fun place to paddle out of. The Lieutenant River has plenty of options, and more tree cover, so I head back in that direction.

The Lieutenant River

By the time I reach Boulder Swamp, the tide has come in enough to make it an easy passage. I head up into Mill Brook, again with enough water to make it a simple paddle, but run out of water at the first bridge, which is normal. The creek needs high tide to get much higher.

Mill Brook

I come back out and turn up the Lieutenant. In this section, the river is a narrow meander through a cattail marsh. Cattails have special meaning in my world. They take me back to adventurous romps with my slightly older aunt and uncles near my grandmothers lake shore house. Today, I daydream about the tunnel that my uncles and I tried to dig under my grandma's house. We were four feet down when she figure out what we were up to. I got to fill the hole in by myself as my coworkers had disappeared to do their paper routes.

The top of the Lieutenant - cattails

The paddle out is all fun and games, as the wind is a steady 15mph with gusts into the 20's. Even so, it has been a beautiful day.

Lost in the Time

I wear a wristwatch, and I carry a compass, which I know how to use. I have a hand held GPS unit, which works if you tap it just right - it doesn't get into the canoe very often.

I almost always check the time as I set out. And, somewhere in the middle of the trip, I forget what time it was when I started. My accuracy for knowing how long I have been paddling is plus/minus a half hour. Today, this happens again and I can't remember whether I set out at 9:00 or 9:30. But, it doesn't really matter. I know where I am, I know where I will end up.

It is cloudy, and somewhat humid, and cool. There is a light wind out of the south that is supposed to shift around this afternoon. The tide is about an hour into rising. I put in at Pilgrim Landing and just to mix it up, I take the long way around Goose Island. The 120 acre island is the last mongo-overgrown patch of European phragmites, a non-native invasive reed, in the cove. The island belongs to a local hunting club and I am forever puzzled as to why they have not eradicated the phragmites. The reed grows so dense that it is not habitat for Ducks and Geese. The island should have a thin strip of spartina grass at the waters edge with cattails, wild rice, and a mix of other native marsh plants. It's only claim to fame are the swallow flock acrobatics that occur about this time of the year.

I cut across Goose Bay and head up into the cove, hitting my usual route, but in a reverse order, more or less. Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, and Osprey are about in equal numbers - maybe a dozen each during the trip. As I went across the bay, I spotted an Osprey parked on a dead fall that had ended up stranded in the center of the bay. Then, it took off...it was a mature Bald Eagle.   

I come out of the cove and need more time. I round the outside of Calf Island and paddle downriver as far as the big bridge before returning to take out.

The Anniversary Trip

I let S sleep in. As I wrote yesterday, it's the time of the year when an early start to beat the midday heat and sun is not needed. We put in on Pond Brook, or Pond Cove as I think of it. While there is an unpaddleable brook above here, the lower mile became a cove when this section of the river was dammed in the 1950's. 

We cross the cove, it's just 20 yards, and paddle out in the shade of the forest, and stay in that shade hugging the southwest shore downriver. The big storm that came through 2 weeks ago has left the water clearer than normal. This section tends towards algae blooms in midsummer, and while the water isn't clear, I can see down well past the tip of my paddle. 

The sky is clear with a light wind out of the south. It is quiet. We see just 3 small motorboats, and about a half dozen paddlecraft, but from a distance. It is our 37th anniversary and we don't say much... today this is a perfect, calm, and peaceful place to think and paddle. We cross the river about a 1/2 mile above the dam and follow that shore back. S tells me that she's not up for a long trip, and I have to tell her that we are already on our way back. 

We stop briefly in one of the small inlets that I am familiar with. It has a small waterfall at the far end, but we cannot get there. There is a new pile of boulders that fills about 2/3 of the width. I'm not sure where the boulders came from. They may have come down the gully in a flash flood, or it may have been a small outcrop on the side that crumbled. The boulders are all clean without any moss on them (and the water level is more than a foot higher than normal) so they are recent.

With that, we continue up the shore, cross the Shephaug, cross the main river, and head back up Pond Cove. 

The Season of Midday Starts

I set out for a short trip around the islands in the big river on the far side of town. I slept rough last night and didn't have the ambition to put this fine day to full use, but being so fine, I also didn't have the gall to not take some advantage of it.

These last few days are the first days of summer when getting an early start wasn't necessary. Finally, the high temperatures are ending up in the low 70's, and there is nothing particularly gruesome about a noon start. 

The tide has just peaked and there is no current in the river. I cut across the river downstream of the drawbridge and head up into the Quad islands. My plan is to circle around and do various figure 8's until I've had enough. I head up the west channel, cut across the tip of Carting, the tip of Long, and round the top of Pope's, follow that island down, rounding the lower tip and crossing over to the middle of Long, upstream and round the tip, cross over to Carting, which I follow down, round that tip and head up the channel between Peacock and Carting, and then finish down the west channel. I pick up a bow's worth of plastic debris to top off my recycle bin at home. Then, back across the river to my put-in. 

I flushed about 30 Mallards while paddling, plus 6 or 8 Great Egrets, a couple Great Blue Herons, and a pair of Black Ducks. Spotted a couple Osprey and one Mute Swan.

Sneaking About in the Marsh

It is overcast except for a couple of tiny blue patches of sky among the clouds. And, it is unusually dark, reminding me of the dawn starts that I used to do more often. Those sunrise marsh moments always reminded me of the early morning duck hunts with my dad, which began several years before I was old enough to have my own gun. With the conditions as they are, my guess is that I will be the only one out here for the next hour or more.

The tide is coming in, but there is already enough water to make it through most of the inner channels, and heck, if I should happen to bog out, I would not have to wait long for the water to rise enough to make my exit.

An Osprey splashes down and lifts off - a miss. A Great Blue Heron flushes, then a couple Night Herons, and a couple Egrets. I head into a narrow passage that will take me to the Left-of-Nell's-Channel Channel. This channel stays open except at low tide, while Nell's is always open for a canoe.

A bottle on a sloughed bank draws my attention. I can't use it to date the sediment, but I'm glad I made the diversion. It is probably not particularly old, but it is well embossed - "The Crystal Bottle Works" from Ansonia. Ansonia is about 9 miles upstream, but I did not know there had been a bottling plant there. 

As I get near the lower marsh, I cut across to the east shore, weaving through small islands of spartina. I flush a dozen Night Herons and a flock of fifteen Ducks. The Ducks are too small to be Mallards and too large to be Teal, and I don't get a good enough look to identify them any more than that. There are two Snowy Egrets, but as one of them flies past, I reassess - this one is a juvenile Little Blue Heron.

From the east shore, (a Sharpshin Hawk flies over, close) I head in to the Central Phragmites Patch where I flush three dozen Night Herons. Six of them are Black Crowns and the rest are either juveniles or Yellow Crowns.  I try to push through the narrow exit channel west and north of the patch, but it is too overgrown and I have to back out. I hear some voices, the first sign of anyone else in the marsh. A Harrier overflies me, as close as the Sharpshin had been. I exit without being noticed and head back across the marsh in a convoluted route towards Nell's Channel. I daydream about someone asking me if I know where I'm going.... "No, I don't know where I am going although I do know where I am." That's a pretty good description of myself.

Two Black Crowned Night Herons

When I get to Nell's Channel, I turn upriver, taking the little side exit that I used to enter the marsh. A pair of faddleboarders are coming by, so I wait for them to pass, and I exit unseen.