Vob span

I'm up before dawn, driven by my wife's early start. It is heavily overcast and my plans for an orange sunrise watched from the marsh are postponed. I think about paddling somewhere different, for a change. Saltwater sounds like a good idea. But, as I'm packing my gear, I think to myself that I don't need to go somewhere else to see something new. The idea of portaging my canoe through my neighborhood on my portage routes seems so fine. I know well enough that I will see something new, I always do. And I know that I will meet someone new while I do the portage, I always do.


East Marsh -
As I turned Potlatch Point coming in from the big lake, I spotted change right away. A small piece of the floating cattail island, perhaps 10 ft on a side, has broken free and floated north some 20 yards. This island is a good sized marsh island that started moving a year ago. It is anchored by sedges and tree stumps in the NW quadrant, but the rest of it is floating mass of cattails. Over ten days last year, in early May, the island moved and sealed off a 70 foot wide channel that I had known for more than 15 years. 2 days ago, that channel opened up to 20 feet. Today it is 30 feet. But today, the southern third of the island has broken off and drifted south about 35 feet. It is a remarkable change in my eyes. I wonder where it will all end up.

I paddle into the bottom end of the east marsh to photograph a redwing blackbird nest left over from last season. They rarely survive as they are usually built on cattail leaves and fall away as the cattails do. This nest was built in a tripod of willow saplings. As I near, a female pops up out of the nest. I did not think that they would reuse the nest, but then again, they almost never have one to reuse.

As I leave the south lagoon, I find a goose sitting firmly on the workbench lodge. It might be a nest sometime soon, but at this point there is nothing to protect and the goose doesn't lower its head like geese sitting on eggs.

I continue on, west and then south into the dead lake on what has become a fine spring day.

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I put in on the Lieutenant River with intention of heading down to the sea.  The first osprey nest, just a hundred yards down the river, is occupied by three chicks with an attentive adult on a nearby snag.They have most of their adult coloring, but appear to not yet be ready to try their wings.  When I reach the Watch Rocks, which are about a mile down, it becomes apparent that the tailwind that I have been riding might not be so much fun to paddle back into later in the trip.  I turn.

Osprey chicks

A bad photo of a snowy egret swallowing a fish

I head out into the main channel of the Connecticut River.  There is a small bear of a headwind, but with the extra effort comes a freshness in the air and a comfort to the skin that has been absent during the past week of high heat and humidity.  I hug the shore, paddling under the long cast lines of striper fishermen and outside of the drop lines of crabbers.

Plastic Owl Party

Before the highway bridge I come across one of the oddities of man..the plastic owl.  The plastic owl (center in photo) is designed to scare shitting birds away.  Now, if one actually takes time to observe birds instead of just checking them off a list, one will realize that birds have much better eyesight than humans AND birds can clearly recognize other bird species.  Willets, for instance, can tell the difference between a hawk and an osprey, a feat that most people can't manage.  They respond to hawks, a major threat, but mostly ignore osprey.  Ducks and coots know the difference between eagles and herons, and ospreys and hawks, etc..  The photo shows that gulls and cormorants (there's a total of ten or so) can quite easily recognize a $25 plastic owl.  This is not an isolated occurrence.


At the upstream end of Calves Island, a waving panel of something draws me over to the tidal grasses.  It is thirty inches of one end of a canoe.  I pry the aluminum manufacturer's plate off as a specimen and leave the rest behind.  Wrecked boats fall into a not quite litter category in my mind.

canoe remains

I continue on upriver into the bottom of Lord's Cove.  The inner passage is hosting several osprey.  Five are aloft while two are on nearby pilings and I'm sure there are more in the area.  If one is not within my view, all it takes is a turn of the head.  The wind is straight in the face and the shallow bay north of Goose Island is choppy.  I take brief rests in the bedrock finger ridges that run off the hills and into the river.

One of the several bedrock finger ridges

At the top of that shallow broad bay I turn back knowing that riding a stiff tailwind in a canoe is still work.  Constant steering is required as following waves overtake while the wind tries to slip the boat sideways to the wind.  It goes quicker than the way out, but it is still work.

wren nest

Back in the Lieutenant, I explore one of the narrow side passages taking it back ten minutes or so until it peters out.  There are a good number of wren nests and red wing blackbirds back here, unseen by those that stay in the main.

The black ducks take wing as I carry the canoe across the top of the sea wall seemingly knowing that I will be putting in where they are feeding.

It has been three weeks out of the canoe, iced out of the inland waters, blown out of the salt water and dealing with other obligations on the few calm days that happened.  I think about the weight of the canoe and my gear more than I normally would.  Infrequent use makes the weight grow.  But, I suppose due to the anticipation of the trip, the canoe springs to my shoulders without any effort and I go.

I look briefly at the snow packed steps that lead down the sea wall and decide that it is walkable with the canoe on my shoulders.  Halfway down, which is entirely the wrong place to make such decisions, I perch on a couple small footholds, roll the canoe off of my right shoulder, pirouette it around to my left hip, and set it on the snow and slide it in front of me the rest of the way down.



I set out down coast.

I spot my neighbor, K, walking along the top of the sea wall.  Her walking silhouette identifies her as surely as the forms of the sea birds that I know.  We wave to each other.

Two black backed gulls disapprove of my presence and fly off from their island boulder.

A lone duck flies off as I try to zoom in on it with my camera to make an identification.  The rapid twerping sound from its wings does the deed.  It is a golden eye.  (Buffleheads make the same sound, but their patterning is different enough that they are hard to confuse).

I slide under the rusty bridge on a good flood tide, an hour to go before peak.  Lower Gulf Pond is ice free except for a few scattered blocks and the shallows near shore.

Again, the tide propels me under the middle bridge into upper Gulf Pond.  Ice swirls in the eddies on the far side of the bridge.  A bit more than half of the upper pond is open.  I only have to break through a thirty foot section of styrofoam ice to get to the the top of the pond.  It is soft and by running the bow onto it a half dozen times a passage is opened.

I have not been in the Indian River for several months.  The narrow passage through the railroad bridge has a substantial current when the tide is rising or falling and entering means staying until that current subsides some.  I think about it.  And then I go through thinking to myself, "curiosity killed the cat".

Killdeer.  Lots of killdeer in the Indian River

The creepy dead baby doll is where I've always seen it, submerged and mired in the mud bottom.  But, since it seems to be settled deeper than normal, I decide to retrieve it.  I could have done this long ago in 70 degree water, but no.  It will be an Indian River specimen.  It is packed with mud and weighs a ton.


 Then, it is time to return from where I came.

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