South Meadows Complex

 

Enjoyed a quiet Sunday morning on the South Meadows Pond Complex in Clinton, MA.  The complex includes South Meadow, Mossy, and Coachlace ponds.  The above photo looks northward down the length of Coachlace Pond.

Launched from this spot on South Meadow Road...

The yellow note advises that the ponds were recently treated for nuisance aquatic vegetation.
  

South Meadow and Coachlace are connected by this culvert under the railroad tracks...

One passageway is clear while the other has a significant number of cobwebs.

The outlet for the 3-pond complex is at the northwest corner of Coachlace where the structure below once played a role in regulating and diverting a portion of the flow to the mill where lace curtains were made for coaches...

Also at the outlet is evidence of the rocky stretch where the brook begins its descent towards the Nashua's North Branch...

The amount of descent is noted when driving from New Harbor Road downhill on Main Street to Church Street.  Near that intersection a construction project was underway possibly involving the out-of-sight culverted brook.

This floating structure on Coachlace has seen better days...

Trash found along the way...

Rounding Orchard Hill

 

Paddled the Assabet River this morning after launching from Cox Street in Hudson, MA.  Lingering fog had burned off resulting in a warm and sunny day.  Headed downstream following the river's winding course around Orchard Hill in Stow, MA...

Turned around at the Gleasondale dam...

Trash included 30 "nip" bottles...

A Calm and Shallow Sudbury

 

Headed up the Sudbury River early this morning after launching at Sherman's Bridge in Wayland, MA.

Came across a hunter targeting Canada geese.  Believe it's the first time I've ever seen Canada geese decoys deployed on the water.

Some wildlife encounters along the way included this carp (I believe) in the shallows...

...and this possible river otter?...

...an eastern kingfisher...

...and this immature hawk perched atop a beaver lodge...

At the Route 27 bridge...

...any hopes of following the river's old course to the Town Bridge were dashed by the low water level...

Trash was very light...

A Litterer's Welcome Mat

 

Headed up the Sudbury River early yesterday morning, towards and under Route 2 in Concord, MA (above photo) along the way.  Conditions were ideal with calm winds and a temperature of 60 degrees F.

Arriving at Fairhaven Bay I pulled up to Brooke Island (aka Scout Island) to take a little break.  It's a beautiful island with a small beach where boaters can easily land their vessels.  Rarely do I see  any trash there...until yesterday when this sight greeted me at the island's only landing spot...

These litterers seemed deliberate as to where they left their trash.

Went further upriver to the outlet from Farrar Pond in Lincoln before heading back.  Approaching Lee's Bridge on the return trip...

...where a bridge of some sort has connected the towns of Concord and Lincoln since 1760.

The Union Turnpike Bridge (Elm St.) in Concord...

The relatively small amount of trash would have been miniscule if not for that found on the island...

Petapawag to Mulpus

 

Launched at Petapawag in Groton, MA this past Tuesday morning and headed upriver under bright blue skies (above photo).  Just past the abandoned Boston and Maine railroad trestle...

...the Squannacook River looked especially inviting...

...until, after only a short distance, it didn't...

Once back on the Nashua I paddled a little past Route 2A to the mouth of Mulpus Brook in Shirley...

...where I turned around and headed back downriver...

Encountered a Mass Fish and Wildlife crew doing a survey of the fish population at several locations on the Nashua River...

I believe that they were using the electrofishing method.
 

 Trash wasn't too bad...

...considering the amount often found 5 or more miles upriver from Mulpus Brook. 

 

A Nitty Gritty Assabet River

 

The Assabet River's water level yesterday was low to the point where the bare bones of the long gone wooden railroad trestle, where the Reformatory Branch once crossed the river near Spencer Brook (above photo), were breaking the surface.    The brook itself was down to a trickle...

It was an exceptionally quiet Sunday morning where more deer than people were encountered....

Several old bottles tried to tell their own stories:

The oldest was this Smith, Kline, and French Co. medicine bottle possibly dating to between 1891 and 1915...

Perhaps second oldest was this 'French Square' jar of the F. H. Roberts Co. Boston, MA that possibly dates to the 1910s or 1920s...

...and most likely once contained hard candies.

A handsomely embossed one-pint wine bottle possibly dating to the 1930s...

A beer bottle embossed with the words "High Life" seemed to contradict the conditions encountered on the Assabet...

...and left me wondering why the name of the company wasn't embossed as well.  

All of the above date-range suggestions came from Artificial Intelligence which seems almost too eager to provide them.

The shell of a deceased snapping turtle...

 Despite the lack of rainfall these mushrooms were abundant...

While the Assabet didn't have nearly as many Cardinal flowers as the Concord River, it still had a few of their delicate flowers...

Trash, both plastic and glass, wore the river's patina...

Post-paddle and while driving home we got a good dose of rainfall which will help replenish the local rivers.

 
 

Nashua Spillover

 

Returned to the Oxbow N.W.R. in Harvard, MA yesterday and found more trash than usual in this section of the Nashua River.  Deciding to paddle upriver I almost immediately began encountering trash along the shoreline...

...and behind most of the fallen trees...

While methodically gathering up plastic bottles and "nips" a very loud splash was heard nearby.  Shortly, a head popped up and the creature began swimming to the shore.  It exited the water and climbed a tree where it tightly hugged (splayed itself against) the tree revealing itself to being a squirrel.  Seems it had fallen out of a tree.

My upriver paddle ended after a little less than a mile at a large blowdown (opening photo) near the stone chapel.  Hard for even me to believe there was this much trash in less than one mile...

...and it included 244 "nip" bottles.  I'm guessing that a large accumulation of trash previously snagged somewhere upriver was somehow unleashed.

Left the river with a full boat and wondered how much additional trash there might be downriver...

Besides trash there was an abundance of Joe Pye weed...