Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Assabet River - Ice House Landing to Gleasondale


This morning, less than an hour after completing my work obligations, I was paddling upstream on the Assabet River under brilliant blue skies. Today's launch site was Ice House Landing in Maynard.
After passing some blue herons, Canada geese, belted kingfishers, a turkey vulture, a small woodpecker, and a few ducks, I came upon this snake making his way across the river...

The snake may have been heading into the outlet from Lake Boon having left from the vicinity of these showy pink flowers...

Close by were these little blue flowers (perhaps true foget-me-not?)...

Further upriver these grapes looked ready to be picked and enjoyed...

At the Gleasondale Mill, I poked my bow into the old millrace that once conducted energy-spent water under Route 62 and back to the river...

This was my turnaround point and I commenced the trip downriver with 33 pieces of trash onboard. Ospreys were encountered twice on the way back. The first one flew from a tree just in front of me and caught me by surprise. The second osprey took flight from his perch on a dead tree limb after giving a few alarm cries...

If you look closely, an unfortunate fish can be seen in the osprey's talons.
Before coming upon the second osprey, this man-bird hybrid took flight from a runway that ends at the river's edge...

He, quite literally, enjoyed a bird's-eye view!
Arriving back at Ice House Landing, everyone disembarked and posed for a photo in the sun before the divvying up...

My count for the day was 43 pieces of trash. Of these 21 were recyclable(5 redeemable) and 22 were misc. rubbish such as styrofoam and plastic bags. One nasty item was a can of spray paint that dribbled blue paint while resting under a deck bungee. Note to self: Paint cans go into dry bag immediately from now on! My YTD total is 3674. Note: clicking on photos enlarges image.

3 comments:

Lis said...

Love the shot of the osprey.

Al said...

Thanks Lis. It appears the osprey's talons have hold of something and upon zooming the original image I can clearly see an unfortunate fish being carried in the head-down position. What I cannot figure out is how the osprey managed to be perched on the tree limb while having the fish in its talons.

Lis said...

Wow - didn't notice the fish before - pretty cool shot.