Saturday, November 17, 2012

A Starker Look to the Sudbury River


By 10 am things had warmed up enough to launch my boat into the Sudbury River at River Road in Wayland.  I headed upriver intending to see if the construction project at the Pelham Island Road Bridge (photo at left) was allowing boat traffic.  On my last visit to the area, in late June, construction had blocked passage to boats.  Today, passage was possible.
Shortly after getting underway, I encountered the plastic trash barrel usually stationed at the Route 20 boat launch, about a mile upriver.  I decided to bring the barrel back to that location since it was on my way.  About one tenth of a mile before reaching Route 20 a floating computer monitor was encountered.  Both the barrel and monitor were left at the boat ramp...
The trash barrel is maintained there by the group Big Heart Little Feet.

Continuing my trip upriver I encountered some one-stop trash shopping at the old Mass Central railroad trestle...
After 20 minutes of work, the area looked better and my fo'c'sle container was full...

Behind Wayland High School several osprey were seen...
At the Greenways this bird was seen...
I'm not sure if it's an osprey or perhaps a northern harrier?


At Indian Point some additional trash was snagged behind a fallen tree.  Just a bit further upriver the narrow channel leading to Heard Pond was noted to have been blocked by beavers...

This became my turnaround point and I began heading back to River Road.  At the Greenways, all passengers stepped briefly ashore for some leg stretching...
Quite a hodgepodge today: 42  recyclable containers (10 redeemable) and 51 pieces of miscellaneous rubbish including 2 life jackets, a broken plastic milk crate, a half full paint can, a plastic 5-gallon pail, and the usual nip bottles, plastic bags, and styrofoam items.  YTD = 6409

Once I reached River Road I couldn't resist paddling just a little ways beyond Rt. 27 and taking a look at the old multi-arched bridge to nowhere in the late afternoon sun...


2 comments:

BERNIE said...

Going to need a bigger boat if the trash find continues to match what you cleaned up today!

Nice work.

Chris said...

I think I can see the tell tale white rump of the Northern Harrier.