Happy Place

I put in sometime after noon on the Menunketusuck.  The tide is low and still dropping, the sky is mostly cloudy with the clouds moving about, and the temperature is in the 70's.  There is a stiff wind coming up the river.

I often set out thinking about the things that I might see, particularly the unusual or new things that nature throws out from time to time.  This tact disappears by the second bend, and I am just happy and thankful to be in such a beautiful place.

It seems that the Osprey are gone.  I spot a Yellow Legs every so often, and a Great Egret.  It is bird quiet for sure.  I'm tallying the few birds, which includes a Cormorant and a few Mallards, when a loose flock of a dozen Great Egrets comes in over my right shoulder and lands, half on the other side of the railroad, half on this side.  I suppose to a creature that flies, the ten foot high berm of the railroad doesn't look like much of a divider. I spot a couple Snowy Egrets.  There don't seem to be any Little Blue Herons or Glossy Ibises, and I suppose they have headed south.

I head back from the rail underpass, which is a one way trip when the tide is moving, and take the east branch up until the water runs thin. Then I head back out and take the west branch up to the pond, which has a 15 inch high stone dam holding the pond water.  I haven't been back here at low tide, so this is the first time that I've seen that, although I have suspected that the bank on this side of the pond might be man-made.

With that, I head out and back up river.