Osprey

Two Osprey are circling over Goose Bay.  Most of the Osprey have left for places south, but there are always a few that stay around right up until "real" winter arrives.  I don't, as far as an Osprey goes, see the reason for Osprey to leave so soon other than they have someplace else to be.  Perhaps some of them go because all the other Osprey are doing it.  The holdouts fascinate me.  They seem to be the rebels that do their own thinking.

It is partly sunny when I head out from Pilgrim's Landing.  The wind is something under 10mph coming downriver and the temperature is climbing up through the 60's.  The tide is coming in and the water is already fairly high.  No one else is around. 

This is the first canoeable day since Wednesday.  A Nor' Easter came through, which the news made out to be something like the end of the world.  As long as you don't live on a sandbar next to the ocean, it was not a big deal, just 3 days of 40+ mph wind and a ordinary amount of rain.  

Lord's Cove is a large marsh, partly fresh and partly brackish. There are two entrances, both of them on the downstream end. Route finding is not difficult with side route choices being either dead ends or loops that return to the main route.  The oddity is a big open pond called Coute's Hole, which is well in the marsh. It is near circular and 200 yards in diameter.  The main paddle route is in a channel that runs around the feature.  All the various theories for the "hole", one of which is as a meteor strike, have no evidence.  The hole is not particularly deep either, in case you were wondering.  One thing for sure, it defies common sense thinking about rivers and marshes. 

With the high water level, I refresh my memory taking some of the more obscure side channels that I haven't been through in quite a while.  I also head into Coute's Hole.  The hole has three entrances, one on the west and the others on the north, and all of them fairly close to others.  It is otherwise surrounded by a solid wall of cattails.  

I find about 50 Teal in the uppermost finger.  Otherwise, the already mentioned Osprey, a couple Kingfishers, a couple Great Blue Herons, in Goose Bay, some Great Egrets and a couple of Terns that I could not identify.  A small flock of Canada Geese flew over - I will never tire of their call. 

On the way out, I circled the shore of Goose Bay, just to make the trip last a bit longer.