Tuesday, October 14, 2014

A Low and Slow Sudbury River

Advancing clouds coincided with my ascent of the Sudbury River yesterday morning.  Despite it being the Columbus Day holiday things were fairly quiet.  There was hardly any wind and temperatures gradually rose out of the 40's.  The view upriver towards Route 2 was a peaceful one.

Water levels remain on the low side as can be seen by the inscribed stone at Egg Rock...
It's hard to imagine the inscription being submerged as it occasionally is in springtime.

Before reaching Route 2 a deceased beaver was seen not far from his lodge...

Past Heath's Bridge in the area known as Conantum a cormorant stood erect...
This guy looked different than the cormorants I usually see...
...and I believe it is a Great Cormorant which is considered uncommon around these parts.  According to my guidebook, they're usually found on rocky ocean shores to the north.

At Fairhaven Bay the little stone boathouse sat snugly on the shore...

A pair of ospreys were seen at the bay's south end.  One of them led me upriver for a while, similar to the way belted kingfishers fly ahead from tree to tree.  He paused long enough on one tree for a photo...

A blue heron patiently awaited its next meal...

Fishermen seen along the way reported good fishing, mentioning bass and northern pike recently caught.

Reaching the mouth of Pantry Brook, I found the short channel to the sheet piling dam completely blocked by a series of beaver dams...
Makes me wonder if the deceased beaver seen earlier had possibly worked himself to death!

That fate was not going to befall me, on this day anyways, as I was moving in a slow and deliberate manner. 

Earlier on the holiday weekend, Mrs. Trashpaddler and I attended a wedding which concluded with the bride and groom leaving the reception via canoe.  The groomsmen carried the canoe, with the bride seated inside, down a path to the Charles River...
 
Then the groom pushed off from the shore, jumped in, and the newly wedded couple began their journey together down the river of life...

...and on Sunday we biked from Belchertown to Northampton on the Norwottuck Rail Trail...

...which brought us across the 7 span 1400 foot long bridge over the Connecticut River...
The view upriver between the western shore and Elwell Island...

Meanwhile, back on the Sudbury River, the MBTA commuter rail bridge is getting a makeover...
Note the floating yellow booms that are no longer floating.

Because of the low water levels trash of an older and more mature nature was recovered...
There were several beer cans that pre-dated our 1983 Bottle Bill.  A milk bottle from the 1950's with a very faded label indicating Dairy Products by Buttrick (in Arlington, MA), and an old beer or soda bottle embossed with French Bros Co Lexington, MA dating to about 1915.  It was found in the shallows where the Assabet and Sudbury Rivers join to form the Concord.  Other (newer) trash consisted of glass and plastic bottles, Styrofoam, plastic bags, an empty propane cylinder, and plastic bags.  YTD = 5004

2 comments:

PenobscotPaddles said...

I love the wedding theme, that's a great. Way to start! I think that's just a young cormorant though,. They're such neat birds, they look like penguins sitting in trees.

Al said...

It's that yellow spot under the cormorant's eye. I've been looking at photos of cormorants at All About Birds (The Cornell Lab of Ornithology) and there's a photo of an immature great cormorant taken on Monhegan Island (by Bill Thompson) that looks identical to the one I saw. Hopefully, someone can confirm one way or the other.