Chipuxet

I set out from the bottom of Worden Pond.  The pond is a shallow and almost circular lake, with it's most noticeable feature, as far as I can tell, is its ability to make a 5 mph wind feel like a 10 mph wind, and a 10 mph wind feel like a 20 mph wind. The pond is just a bit over 4 miles from the ocean, and it is a very flat 4 miles, so the wind comes in directly. On a windy day I avoid this put-in like the plague, but today there is a 8 mph south wind predicted.

It is 1-1/2 miles to the mouth of the Chipuxet.  The mouth is a 30 foot wide opening in a half mile wide wall of shrubs and stunted trees.  It is not as hard to locate as one might think as once you get up close there isn't anything that looks like an opening other than the river. A Great Blue Heron is standing guard near the entrance.

The Chipuxet is actually the source of the Pawcatuck River, but by the oddity of colonial place names it has a different name.

I haven't been here since last fall, and even in that short time, I have forgotten how spectacular this marsh is.   Grasses are starting to come out and some of the trees and shrubs have buds on them. The lower section is narrow and twisty, often less than a canoe length in width.  The first beaver dam comes in just a hundred yards. It is low and I cross it without getting out of the canoe.  The second dam is about a 1/4 mile in.  It is a foot high and I do have to get out and stand on the dam while pulling the canoe over. Not far away is the associated lodge. The advantage of that dam is that the river is now a foot deeper and several feet wider.  I will cross 3 more dams, but they are all low and can be crossed easily.

I flush a Harrier. On the way out, I will flush it again from this same spot, so it stands to reason that it might have a kill.  I will aslo count about 2 dozen Wood Ducks, 3 Great Blue Herons, several Mallards, and several Canada Geese. Turtles are everywhere, especially painted turtles, but i do spot 3 snapping turtles, one of which is manhole cover sized.

Snapping Turtle

I continue all the way up to the beaver dam that holds back 100 Acre Pond. It's 24-30 inches high.  I turn back from here. The wind has been coming up, and I know that it will be in my face while crossing Worden Pond. 

 True to reputation, the pond feels windier than it should.  I skirt the east shore where there is some protection from the headwind.

Total of about 11 miles.

 

Waiting for Willets

The tide is still quite low and the way down from Foote Bridge to the bottom of the Gravel Flats is a lot of drifting with only an occasional and subtle use of the paddle to keep the canoe in the deepest water, all 5 or 6 inches of it. If I was a left-lane kind of guy, you know, the dudes driving in the left lane who always think that someone else is in their way, I'd probably just get out and wade it, which would be faster. But, I am not a left-lane guy, stating the obvious as I spend so much time paddling a 3 mile per hour boat. It is entertaining to fit 16 feet of canoe through a series of boulders with just an inch to spare, without touching rock.

It is in the 60's and sunny.

1 Great Egret, 1 Snowy Egret, 2 circling Osprey, several Yellow Legs, a Kingfisher, and a few Ducks before reaching the Clapboard Hill Bridge.

In the middle marsh, more Yellow Legs, some non-migratory Canada Geese, and, at the lowest of the Big Bends, 2 adolescent Bald Eagles, their heads and tails starting to turn white, but still with lots of buff blotches on their bodies. 

The First Willet

Below the railroad bridge, in the lower marsh, I spot a pair of Willets not long after the river turns away from the rail line.  These are my first Willets of the spring. By the confluence with the Neck Rvier, I have a total of 8 Willets.  These are the vangaurd and many more will arrive in the next week. It will get quite active as the Willets pick out nesting sites and start mating. Their mating dance is one of the easiest to observe as they perform it right at the water's edge. It is just a matter of being here during that week or so. 

Mosquito control drainage trench - before 1934

Willets nest on the ground here in the marsh.  Most Willets nest in the great plains - Nebraska, Wyoming and eastern Montana.  But, to a Willet, a high salt marsh is not too different than prairie grassland.  Ground nesters, they need open views and a safe distance from trees and shrubs that would be cover for predators.  They are sentinel birds, in that they will fly up and hassle predatory birds and animals all the while calling out an alarm.  Ocean rise due to climate change will probably make this are unusable for nesting in the not too distant future.  By 2050, the ocean level is expected to rise a foot and a half, and while the nesting surfaces of the marsh currently flood a couple times each month, an extra six inches of water will probably making nesting impossible. I don't think that the marsh will accumulate soil fast enough to keep up with the ocean rise.

Not the first Willet

I turn up the Neck and then Bailey Creek.  Spot 8 more Willets.  The water is still low enough to see some of the old corduroy road.  

Corduroy Road 

I head into the Sneak, even though the water is still pretty low.  I run out of water about a hundred yards in.The Sneak floods from top and bottom as the tide comes in, I sit for awhile, procrastinating over my three options. I could turn back, but the wind has come up and I don't feel like paddling against the wind and the current to get back to the East River. I could wait for the tide, but as I sit and watch water slowly, slowly come in, I figure an hour before I can float through. Option three - portage - wins. The hardest part is getting up onto the flat and fairly firm spartina - the banks are goo.  I grab the bow line and carefully step the hummocks up to the spartina level.  It is as firm as a wet lawn, having a dense matrix of several seasons of roots knitting it together.  Since there are no rocks, I don't have to shoulder the canoe.  I simply drag it across the six inch tall grass.  It's about a hundred yards to get back to the channel.  

The Sneak at lower than mid-tide

The return is easy with current and wind behind me.

Mattebasset Beaver Check

I head up to the Salmon River, but the wind is up by the time I arrive.  It is not so bad that I could not canoe it, but it would be a lot of work, particularly on the way out.  The bottom of the Salmon River is a mile of open cove connected to a fairly wide section of the Connecticut River. So, I divert to the Mattebasset River, which is often my go-to on windy days.

My last trip in here was three weeks ago, when the Connecticut River was a little over 10 feet (Hartford USGS gauge) on it's way down from a peak of 18 feet just a few days earlier.  The Mattebasset backs up when the Connecticut is high. Today, the gauge is at about 6-1/2 feet, which is the high end of normal.

This is a good day to check on the beaver, which were flooded out of their lodges by that last flood. 10 feet on the gauge is just about where the living space of the lodges flood.  18 feet means that the water level is 5 to 6 feet over the top of the lodges.   

I start by heading upstream.  I spot a few Mallards and one Great Blue Heron.  It is a quiet bird day.  I turn back just short of the railroad trestle.  The water here is fast and shallow and I would have to wade to make headway.  The upstream trestle requires a short portage, and then a short span, it goes shallow and fast again.  I pass outrigger-guy as I head back.  He's probably doing laps, so it might not be a good wildlife day.

Point Lodge - one of the entrance tunnels is directly below the canoe

The old bank burrow is looking dilapidated.  I slow down at this point to watch for beaver sign.  Before the flood, the quarter mile from here to the Point Lodge was non-stop beaver sign; scent mounds, recent gnaws and peals every few yards. Superficially, Point Lodge looks okay.  But, only on the surface.  There is not a single scent mound, no leftover peal sticks, no recent drags, and no new tree gnawings anywhere in the area.  While the lodge is still conical, no new branches or mud have been added.  I find the back door entry tunnel, and it too looks unused with loose silt partially filling the submerged trench. I think the colony has moved on.  I wrote about this in my entry for my last trip, that this river appears to be ideal beaver habitat, but it is not.  With one or two big floods each year, and one of them happening in the spring when newborn kits are in the lodge, this is at best a temporary stop for beaver.

I continue on to check on the bank burrow near the Tepee Lodge ruins.  It, more or less, looks like the Point Lodge - it hasn't collapsed and looks okay, but there is no fresh sign in the area.

Calm Day in the East River

It is a fairly calm and mostly sunny day, and putting in at Foote Bridge and 10 AM, it is already nearly 60F. The tide is coming in with about 2-1/2 hours until peak.  

Looking upstream at Foote Bridge

The upper end, in the forest, is noticeably calm. I sight no birds until just above Clapboard Hill Bridge, where I spot a Great Egret and an Osprey. The bridge is also the first point where I notice any current.

Just a hundred yards below the bridge, a large bird is perched high in tree. It is silhouette with the bright sky behind it, but I guess Bald Eagle as it seems too large for an Osprey, and the wrong shape for a Heron.  It flushes as I near, crossing the river and confirming my guess, a mature Bald Eagle.

It is a peaceful paddle with just a small wind out of the south. I decide to follow the East River down and return through Bailey Creek and the Sneak.  In the bend above the confluence, I spot a Red Throated Loon. Usually, Loons dive and swim off, but this one flies away.  Fortunately, I get a photo to confirm my sighting. 

I turn up the Neck River. The dock Osprey nest is under renovation by the mated pair.  It looks to be about 300 lbs of nest at this point.  There are quite a few Lesser Yellow Legs on the Neck River and Bailey Creek shoreline. I pass through the Sneak with ease, as the tide is at peak.

Green Winged Teal in one of the Big Bends pannes

Coming back up to the Big Bends, the tide is high enough that I can peek over the spartina and see one f the pannes.  Besides the expected Yellow Legs, there are several Green Winged Teal.  80 or 90 years ago, the government trenched the hell out of the entire marsh in order to drain the pannes and reduce mosquito habitat. The Green Winged Teal, which I rarely see in the main river, are kind of a marker for how backwards that idea was. Eliminating mosquito habitat also eliminated some perfect bird habitat.

 

Little Blue Heron and Glossy Ibis Time

It is not yet 40F with a 10 mph wind that puts just a bit of sting on bare skin. High tide was a half hour ago. The sky is full sun.

I spot a couple of Osprey right off.  Coming down from the top of the marsh, I flush about a dozen Mallards and spot one Great Egret. As I near Opera Singer Point, I start hearing and spotting Yellow Legs at the water's edge.

The Menunketesuck marsh is shaped like an abstract plus sign with east and west arms that are meandering dead ends. It is a high salt marsh that only floods a couple times each month during the highest tides. Because of this, the dominant plant is the short spartina - spartina patens aka salt hay. If the tide is mid level or higher, one can see a long distance.

Greater Yellow Legs and a Lesser Yellow Legs

I first head up the east arm, which meanders while gradually getting closed in by the surrounding forest. I get my first ever sighting of a Lesser Yellow Legs next to a Greater Yellow Legs. Side by side, the difference is more than obvious. I find a few Black Ducks, two Great Egrets and two Snowy Egrets. Because of local nesting of Little Blue Herons, you have to get a good look at Snowys as they are similar in size and appearance to the juvenile Herons. The yellow feet of the Snowy Egrets is the for-sure tell. 

Snowy Egret

As I get back to the main river, I'm thinking about how I will write in my journal that it is a rather thin bird day. Then a flock of seven dark birds rises up way over on the far end of the west arm - a short half-mile away. Ducks maybe?  Then they wheel and circle tightly, all in formation.  That's how Glossy Ibises fly (Ducks usually look like they are going somewhere). As I enter the west arm, two Ibises fly towards me and land, but they aren't Ibises. With the bright sky, all dark birds are just dark birds.  They flush as I maneuver in the wind to get a photo - it's a pair of mature Little Blue Herons. 

Glossy Ibises

I paddle down to the end of the west arm.  If there are more Ibises or Little Blue Herons, they are down low where I can't see them.  I head back out.

Paddling back up the main river, against the stiff wind, two more Little Blue Herons overtake me.  There is a panne on river-right, maybe a hundred yards off of the river, and as the tide is dropping, once they land, I can't see them. Some Yellow Legs fly in and also disappear from view.

I get one more Great Egret sighting as I finish up.  It was a pretty good bird day.

Great Swamp Below Patterson

It is a little cool with a thin sprinkle coming down as I set out from Green Chimneys. The water is high - just a little out of the banks, and there is more current than normal, something less than a 2:1 flow.  2:1 is my own paddling ratio, which makes sense as I almost always do out and back trips, and it means that if I go against the current for 2 hours, it will take 1 hour to return.

The overcast makes this a less than ideal day for photography. 

The two lodges in the first pond look to be in use.  I find a newer and larger lodge at the top of the pond. This new lodge looks large enough to be in use by a breeding pair. 

 

The water is high enough to clear all of the beaver dams without having to step out. I spot a male Bufflehead. That species winters near Long Island Sound and this is the first time that I have seen one in the Great Swamp and I assume that it might be migrating north. I've never been in here during early April, so if my migration guess is accurate, that would explain not seeing them.

I do spot two Great Blue Herons, which were notably absent from my trip here a few days back. I also spot an Osprey.  Osprey are occasional sightings for me in this stretch of river. Otherwise, some Black Ducks, Mallards, and Wood ducks, although not as many Woodies as I saw on April 2. I spot Canada Geese several times.

With the water up, I clear a good many deadfalls that would be much more of a bother. The big deadfall at the top of the forest section is still there. It requires a short portage, which is more fun than in the past because the beaver have been eating saplings and left lots of punji sticks on the muddy path. A chubby beaver slips off the bank. I pull up waiting for it to come up and eyeball me, but it is gone. I also spot a some type of weasel and one muskrat.

I contemplate my turn-around point as after two straight hours of paddling against the current it is starting to feel like work - at least it is good work. I thought I might turn at Pine Island, but continue the rest of the way up to Patterson, just because the conditions are so good.  

Coming back I pass close to a Mute Swan.  The mate is about a 100 yards away, off in the marsh. The lack of aggression suggests that the hormones aren't flowing, yet.

The return is faster for sure, in places. It is a 13 mile round trip taking 4-1/2 hours. The return, with the current, is only a 1/2 hour quicker. I do not see a single person the entire time.

 

Great Swamp Above Patterson

I set out into the Great Swamp from the Patterson put-in. It is calm and partly sunny, maybe 40F, and the water is high enough to just barely creep out from the river channel.  It is definitely not high enough to cut any of the many meanders.

Once or twice a year, when the water is high, I will go upstream to see how far I can get. It is a beating ones head against a wall exercise, as I've never gotten to the first bridge, which is something like a half mile. The typical problem is that there are always some channel spanning deadfalls that are too problematic to bother with, especially when a return trip is part of the plan. 

Upstream of the 311 Bridge

So, I head upstream into the usual twists and turns, and wonder of wonders, I make it to the first bridge. The river opens up some at that point, but only for  a short stretch. It is nice to be in new water that I've never seen before.  I am regularly flushing Mallards, Black Ducks and Wood Ducks....and more Wood Ducks.  This beaver built environment is ideal for Wood Ducks, and by the end of the trip, I will have seen about a hundred of them.This reach of the river is much more of a tangle than any place in the river below Patterson.  The river often splits into two or three narrow channels and I have a few easy step-overs and one well built beaver dam that is about 18 inches high.
 

After that, is a good beaver pond.  I squeeze under a railroad bridge and continue a short distance.  At the top of the pond, the river resembles a flooded meadow with a handful of shallow channels With a few more inches of water, I'd keep going, but what I see is a mix of wading and log crawling.  I turn back.

New Lodge

The distance was not much, if one looked at a map. As the crow flies, it was barely a half mile, but that half mile was a hundred tight turns and narrow gaps to slip through.  The round trip took over two hours.  I continue on past the put-in into river that I know well.  I usually think of this first mile as one of tight meanders, but after that first two hours, I feel like I am paddling the Mississippi. All of the deadfalls and beaver dams are submerged and it is an easy paddle. I continue to flush Wood Ducks and an occasional few Mallards or Black Ducks. One thing I note is that I do not see a single Great Blue Heron. This freezes over in most winters, so they migrate out, and haven't returned, yet. 

I paddle down as far as the hunter's canoe stash, just a bit downriver from Cult Tower Hill. Then, I turn and head back, taking out after just under four hours of paddling.

Fog

Low tide was just over two hours ago as I put in at Bear House Hill Road. But, there is a very high tide coefficient, which basically means there will be a very low tide and a very high tide. My timing is good however, as I expected to have to wade a couple times before clearing the Gravel Flats, and I manage to do that distance without stepping out of the canoe at all, although I do have to thread a few narrow gaps between boulders. 

It is foggy and somewhere near 50F. There is a very light wind coming up the river.  It sprinkles briefly, and very sparsely as if just a few random drops are forming in the overhead fog. I spot three Osprey before getting to the Clapboard Hill Bridge.

The only shorebirds that I see today are Yellow Legs, and they are quite regular in the stretch between Clapboard Hill Bridge and the railroad bridge. I see none in the salt marsh below the railroad. There are no Willets, yet. 

With the tide still low, I stay in the East River, enjoying the fog, which has erased any man-made visuals from the route. Most of the Osprey nests appear to have both of the mates.  

The fog lifts as I paddle up the Neck River and Bailey Creek.  Only then do I spot a few Great Egrets, which were invisible in the fog. I flush some Black Ducks and Green Wing Teal in the upper part of Bailey Creek.  Black Ducks seem to prefer this out of the way area and I find them here all winter long.

I take the Long Cut back across to the East River, the tide having filled the narrow channel for easy passage. I return back up the Eat River with a moderate flood current helping me along. I can power through right up to my start point, all of the boulders and deadfalls of the low tide well submerged.

First Great Egrets

I put in on the far side of town, under the high bridge. There is just one more hour until high tide and the current is already starting to lessen. A Red Throated Loon is fishing about 50 yards ahead of me and a Common Loon is off to my right in the middle of the river. Just below the drawbridge, I find a second Common Loon.

The wind is out of the south and west and is probably blowing about 10 mph. Even with that and the flood current, it is an easy downriver paddle. When tides are higher than average, long stretches of slack water and eddies form along the east shore. I spot a good sized flock of birds at the far end of the marsh, almost a mile away. 

Upper entry to the Nell's Island maze

I head into the Nell's Island maze.  The upper entry has a fork in it, and for the first time, I take the left arm. It is more open than the right arm, but it returns me to Nell's Channel in a hundred yards. I find another way in off of the channel, but it has a patch of very shallow water that would be mud in all but the highest tides. I can write off this route.

Near the lower entrance to the maze, I spot a white pvc pipe standing vertical in the spartina. This needs to be investigated, and it turns out to be my first Great Egret Sighting of the spring. Nearby are four more Egrets. Aside from that, I am flushing some Black Ducks and finally, some small flocks of Teal The flock of birds that I saw earlier were Teal.  Black Ducks, Mallards and Teal are fairly plentiful in the marsh today.

The first Great Egret of the spring

Yesterday, one of my canoe contacts posted a question about what type of GPS watch people preferred. My first response was, "Don't you know where you are?" Later, I added that I use a map and compass, my GPS works only if you slap it just right, and I leave it at home anyway, and my flip phone doesn't have a browser. Canoeing long ago became a way for me to connect spiritually with the environment. I learned pretty quickly that the use of GPS for route finding or route recording was not only superfluous, but actually detrimental to my spiritual intentions. Every time I referred to the device, I found that it took several minutes to get back to where I was. I've described it as a sky-down view when what I was really looking for was an earth based view.

Selden

I put in at Ely's Ferry Road.  It is near high tide, but with the river running high, there is a stiff current to paddle upstream against. It is in the 40's with a light downriver wind, and cloudy.  It feels cooler than it actually is.  As soon as I turn the canoe upstream, an immature Bald Eagle swings out from the top of the forest, and an Osprey arrives, fishing out in mid river.

Unlike the section of the river near the Mattebasset (see yesterday's entry), the river in this area has a good amount of buffer space - marshes, coves, and tributaries where excess water in the river can spread out. The water here is probably on the order of a foot above normal, although the current has an extra half mile per hour behind it.

It is a slow paddle upstream against the wind and the current. As I near Joshua Creek, the call of a Hawk...it's a Red Tail and it turns back flying away from the river. 

At the bottom of Selden Channel, I hear the whistles of Osprey.  At this time, Osprey are migrating through or finding their way back to nests in the area.  It is a surprise to find a mated pair already at their nest, and they've been doing work as the nest is looking quite solid. 

There is a good deal of beaver sign on the shoreline. In fact, it is rare to pass more than a few yards without seeing a cut saplings, a drag, or feed site.  A pair of beaver slip off the bank to my right. I only see one, but there are two bubble trails heading in different directions. The bubbles come from air squeezed out of the fur as they swim. The beaver surfaces ten feet ahead and gives me a good tail slap.  I spin the canoe and wait for the beaver to surface, then take a photo and leave it in peace.

Unusually, there is a strong current in the Selden Channel.  It took an hour to paddle up to the bottom of the channel and it takes another full hour to get to the cove at the top of the channel. I flush about a hundred Black Ducks and Mallards while in the channel. There are a few Common Mergansers as well.

Muskrat

At the top of the channel I turn and head back. With the current, it is an easy paddle, even without the wind, which has gone to calm. I spot one very fast muskrat as I head down the channel.

Giants in the Earth, the Castor Canadensis Edition

 I have new thoughts on the Mattebasset River. The title of this entry refers to Ole Rølvaag's novel about Norwegian homesteaders in the Dakotas.  The novel ends rather bleakly when the promised land turns out to have some hard edges.

Gusty wind is predicted, but I make an early enough start that I seem to have evaded it.  Putting in, it is already in the 40's and warming with a very light wind.  The Mattebasset is my go-to river for windy weather, being well protected by hillsides and trees. The water is high, the result of flooding in the Connecticut River, which this river joins just a few miles down.  In this reach of the Connecticut, there is a shortage of riverside marshes and tributaries to absorb high water events. Today, the water is about 5 or 6 ft above normal.  Five days ago, there was another 8 feet of water in here! This is an important detail for today's entry. 

I cut the river bank through a narrow bit of shallowly flooded forest into the Hummingbird Marsh.  It is worth the effort as I spot my first Osprey of the spring, high overhead circling and hovering, on the hunt. Two more Osprey arrive a few seconds later.  I also flush several Wood Ducks as I edge the more open water at the edge of the marsh.

The Mattebasset has always been a good place to come for the chance beaver sighting.  There are usually a few lodges to find and lots of beaver sign - scent mounds, gnawings, and downed trees.  It is unusual in that it lacks stability as a beaver habitat.  While there are always beaver here, lodges don't last very long and it is rare that any lodge gets enlarged enough to show that there is an active and producing colony.  And, that gets back to the high water that I mentioned.  

At first glance, whether or not you are a beaver, this river seems to be ideal habitat.  I can imagine a newly arrived beaver writing home to the folks to tell them of the forty acres of bottom land forest with running water and no competition for territory, sort of like Rølvaag's settlers when they arrived in the Dakotas. Unfortunately, once a year, if they are lucky, the river will flood.  And it will not flood just a little, but rather the water will rise up until it is five, six or ten feet above the top of the beaver lodge.  This forces the beaver out of the safety of the lodge.  If the flood is short lived, the beaver might return to their lodge, but more often the flood lasts a week or more.  At that point, the beaver will abandon the ruins and build a new lodge.  And, if that keeps happening, as it has recently with two or three flood events per year, the beaver move on.  

The Point Lodge - only 2 feet exposed.  It is a 4 foot tall lodge.
The water level was about 8 feet higher five days ago.
I expect that this lodge will be abandoned.

This is without considering the need to reproduce.  Beaver have kits in late winter or early spring. They have a set each year and the kits are allowed to stay until their second year, at which point they are pushed out and must go colonize new territory.  With two or three floods each year, reaching a stable colony has to be very difficult, and based on the rarity of large lodges, it's probably not often happening in the Mattebasset. 

I make it down to the Coginchaug River just as the wind arrives.  It has come up quickly, and rather than head up into the Coginchaug, I turn back.  This is the wrong side of the wide open marsh considering the wind.  I spot an adolescent Bald Eagle on the return. It has the white head and tail, but still has light blotches on the body. I pass the put in and head up as far as the railroad trestle, which I manage to pass without portaging.  And that is far enough for the day.  I head back out.

The Home Turf

I set out into a murky day just as the morning mist dissipates. The tide is very near high and there is no wind with a temperature somewhere under 50F. I follow the east shore down the river to the marsh.  I was just thinking about how I hadn't seen any Common Loons in their normal fishing area around the bridge when one surfaced in mid river.  

At the top of the marsh, I head over to Nell's Island.  With the high tide, it is a perfect opportunity to head into the Nell's Island maze. I flush some Black Ducks and scattered Canada Geese in the maze, and make it through to the south end of the island with only one wrong turn, although I seem to find the exit via a secondary channel that I've not before been in.

Ducks and Geese are well distributed throughout the marsh, which I credit to the end of hunting season a few weeks ago.  I flush some Geese, which sets off a chain reaction of Ducks and Geese going to wing.  But, unlike during hunting season, I watch them settle down in the marsh again.  In hunting season, they just leave the marsh. I flush a flock of seventy five Green Wing Teal from the center of the marsh.  I saw a hundred or so Green Wing Teal yesterday in the Connecticut River, so they are definitely on the migration. There are more Teal scattered throughout the marsh.

I somehow miss the passage leading to the Central Phragmites Patch, so I back out, interrupted very briefly by a Snipe flying at high speed across the top of the spartina. I take an obvious route over to the east shore, then cut back into another inner channel that leads to the top of the marsh. A Harrier sweeps through. I really like watching Harriers hunt, gently and silently gliding low across the top of the marsh, weaving and bobbing at times to get closer looks at possible prey.

 

Nest Check

A couple hundred yards before the Boulder Swamp, I spot a mature Bald Eagle soaring in a thermal about 300 ft up. The only wing motion over the next couple minutes is a subtle dip of one wing to adjust its turn. When I reach the Boulder Swamp, the Eagle is directly overhead and about a 100 ft higher.  Then, it turns east and glides off until disappearing behind the trees. In another minute, another mature Bald Eagle comes in from the north.  It heads towards a nest that I am familiar with.  I get to the nest just in time to see the Eagles do a shift change, trading off the hunting and egg sitting roles.

The old mill race, which is about the same size as the river at this point

I make my way through the Boulder Swamp. At a lower tide one has to slow down to avoid pasting one of the many barely submerged boulders, which I assume are substantial leftovers from the ice age. The Lieutenant River narrows significantly after the boulders, coming down from Rogers Lake as little more than a steep creek. The river presents its usual M O. with the channel blocked by a good sized deadfall. I have only once made it up the next 1/3 of a mile to a old mill dam. I don't need to go up there bad enough to clamber over this deadfall. On a positive note, the deadfall is the result of beaver gnawing halfway through the trunk.

Common Merganser - male

I back out and take the other arm, a meandering dead end  that heads into a dense cattail marsh.  I flush some Black Ducks and several Wood Duck pairs. Then, I back out of there and head down river, passing my put-in with intentions of going to the Watch Rocks. I retrieve a wandering paddleboard, which is in new condition.  I deposit it on the nearest dock as it should belong to someone nearby. The winter winds have been tough this year - (I noticed that the canoe abuse guy at the top of the Boulder Swamp - he owns an high quality canoe that he leaves outside to rot in the UV light... the new discoloration in the kevlar laminate looks like it must have gone sailing around his property)

There is a Red Throated Loon at the railroad bridge. It is actively fishing and with each dive it moves away from me. It's the first Red Throated of the spring. 

Green Wing Teal

I's quiet down to the Watch Rocks. But then, there are about a hundred Green Wing Teal in the bay just above the rocks. I take a short break on an island near the rocks, and then wander back exploring some side channels, which it turns out, connect.

Animal Time

In between paddle strokes, I catch the calling of Canada Geese somewhere behind me.  The calls are coming through riverside forest and I suppose they have taken off from somewhere in Lord's Cove. After a piece of a minute, I can tell that they are coming from behind me, getting closer as the calls become louder as well as coming down at an increasing angle.  The calls of a flock of Canada Geese peels decades off of my life as I am taken back to the first time that I heard and connected that noise to the bird. I lean back and look overhead waiting for them to arrive.  It is amazing.  It is two hundred Canada Geese in a giant V, half of the flock in each arm, and they look to be near a thousand feet up.  They didn't come from the nearby Lord's Cove.  These Geese are on a long flight northward.  I watch them as I continue paddling upriver. The formation becomes a thin smoky smear, still visible a couple minutes after they passed over. The thin line of smoke becomes more like a ball - the formation has turned to one side or the other. They don't disappear until trees on a mile distant hill hide them from view.

It is another warm day.  The tide is high, perhaps just peaking a few minutes ago. I set out from Ely's Ferry Road, heading upstream to Selden Island.  There are quite a few Common Mergansers in the main river.

Just short of the entrance to the Selden Channel, I spot a mature Bald Eagle high overhead.  It is several hundred feet up sharing a thermal with four Gulls.  Over the next three or four minutes, the Eagle flaps its wings only three times, as if to relieve stiff muscles.  

I head into the long marsh channel on river right.  I don't go back in here often, but it is a spot that should get checked every so often.  A few hundred yards in, I find a beaver lodge. It is an exceptional build, an Architectural Digest beaver lodge to be sure - perfectly conical with well packed mud and just enough branches to hold it all together.  

First Lodge

Beaver are colonial, and finding this lodge is a sign that I should continue on.  A second lodge is a few more hundred yards.  It is also well built, although the craftsbeavership is not up to the first lodge.  I find a third lodge farther in.  This one might not be in use, seeming a bit porous, but if it is abandoned, it wasn't vacated too many months ago.

Second Lodge

 I continue, knowing that the channel will peter out, although the marsh will continue.  A hundred yards or so up from the last lodge, the scent of castoreum is thick. I have no doubt that there are more lodges beyond this point.  Scent mounds are territorial markers.  Usually, the mounds are dirt piles on the bank, but these are grass hummocks.  The beaver have smashed down the grass and plopped a couple shots of mud on top of the hummock before leaving their scent. Also of note is that there is an occupied Eagle Nest between this channel and the main river.  

I turn and head back, crossing the channel and heading back into the Elf Forest, a marsh of stunted and twisted trees.  I flush at least seventy five Black Ducks as I head in, and spot, unexpectedly, two turtles trying warming in the sun. The wind has been coming up, and I decide that it is time to start my return, as I am going to have some angle of a headwind.

Fortunately, I have the river and tidal current with me once I get to the main river.  The water is choppy, particularly by some of the bedrock points that protrude into the river. 

Taking out, three kids on bikes arrive.  They tell me about there family canoe trip last year to Kilarney, a provincial park in Ontario. It's good to trade canoe stories.

Ghost Animal

Two immature Bald Eagles circle over the put-in. 
I set out, leaving my camera in its waterproof box, deciding to paddle for awhile without the distraction. It's one of those scientific facts, that the observation of an experiment changes the experiment. Anyway, I was even thinking about how I would write in my journal about leaving the camera boxed away, and rounding the first point, where I consider myself to be entering the cove, was a bobcat, not thirty feet away. I know with fair certainty that if I go for the camera, the bobcat will be gone. I keep and eye on the bobcat as it walks warily away on a steep slab of bedrock that is the shoreline.  I fumble the camera out of the box, but the bobcat is behind some brush by that time.  It disappears like the ghost animal that it is.

It is already in the 40's and rising to 60F later with a light wind.  The tide has peaked, but not long ago so the currents are nothing to cry over. 

I head into the U-channel. I normally leave this route for the end of the trip, such as when I need just a little more canoe time, as the other possibilities in this marsh are more interesting.  I flush a few Common Mergansers and Buffleheads as I turn in.  I spot three dark birds, probably Red Wing Blackbirds, in the reeds, which are still standing as we have not had any heavy snowfall.  They trill, confirming my guess.  In the U-channel, I flush some Teal, Black Ducks, more Common Mergansers and Buffleheads,  one Harrier, and a pair of Hooded Mergansers.

I head up into the upper arm where there has been a very productive Eagle nest.  The nest is still there, but I see no activity.  I would expect that eggs would be laid by now, but I'll just have to check back later. I take one of the small side channels. It dead ends just a few yards from the Ely Ferry Road and I can see a landmark house near the shore.  I might, some day, do the portage and make this trip into a loop. 

Heading back, I divert over to the little wood bridge, just in time to see three women ride their horses over. Then, I continue out, crossing the very shallow Goose Bay to get into the main river and round the bottom of Goose Island back towards the put-in.