Canoe Boxing Day

It is sunny and calm with a temperature that will rise from 25F to about 35F during the day. 

I put in on the Lieutenant River, a small last minute tributary to the Connecticut River. I turn upriver, pass under a two-lane bridge and take a deep breath.  I have been stuck inside with bad cold for the last week and I am looking forward to being outside for something other than a short walk about town. Turning the first bend, I spot twenty Hooded Mergansers. I usually spot these birds in three's - a male with two females. I add a Great Blue Heron, a flock of Common Mergansers that pass overhead, and some Black Ducks and Mallards.  There is a shelf of ice attached to the bank. It is pretty firm stuff, about a 1/2 inch thick at most. 

Some of it is dusted with snow from the other night. Out in front of the Florence Griswald Museum, the ice spans the river, but there is a lane of airy weak ice that probably formed last night. It is obvious, being dark in color, and the canoe cuts through it easily.  I get about another 200 yards, not reaching the Boulder Swamp, where the river is frozen over, most of it dusted with snow. 

I head back down, passing my start point and continuing into the back channels of the Connecticut. I flush a few small groups of Black/Mallards every so often, and another Great Blue Heron. I continue down to the Back River, which is actually just a channel that connects the main river with the smaller back channels. 

I don't usually paddle the Back, because it is just a wide straight channel and rarely has any interesting wildlife. But, it makes for a different return route, and the main river won't be the wake bounce fest that it is during summer when the motorboat drivers are out.  As it happens, I spot a raccoon working the shoreline, and then a small duck the dives with little disturbance. It reminds me of a Pied Billed Grebe, and I finally get a decent photo to ID the bird.  It is a female Ruddy Duck. Some of the unidentified ducks I spotted earlier might have been Ruddys. I don't see them that often.

Female Ruddy Duck

I head back up the big river, dodging sheets of fresh water ice that have been coming downriver. A lot of it is pretty well formed - clear and hard and a 1/2 inch or more thick, and anything bigger than the top of a coffee table is best avoided. 

One more Great Blue Heron as I near my start point.