Tuesday, July 12, 2011

An Enchanting Assabet Patrol

After a hot day at work and a hot drive down Route 128, I needed a respite from the heat.  The Assabet River in Concord provided that and more as I paddled from Egg Rock to Spencer Brook and back.  It seems the wildlife were also enjoying a respite and they were not their usual shy and retiring selves.  This Muscovy duck almost climbed aboard my boat...


Handsome devil, isn't he?

This blue heron held his ground, as well...

There were also sitings of musquashes, 2 large snapping turtles engaged in combat (or something else), and a tail-slapping beaver.  But the real story of the day was the amount of white-tailed deer seen.  In all there were 3 fawns and 3 different adults.  This group was the most inquisitive...

With the dropping water levels, some new trash had become exposed and was captured...
The haul of 23 pieces consisted of 10 recyclable containers (2 redeemable) and 13 pieces of miscellaneous rubbish such as styrofoam, plastic bags, and what appears to be either a flexible bucket or perhaps one of those upside down plants.  YTD total stands at 3875.

4 comments:

Steve said...

Wow, Quite a day!!!

Rob said...

The deer shot is incredible. You can see the experience in the expression of the doe and the wonder in the expressions of the fawns.

suep said...

we used to call those Muscovy ducks "chick-a-goos" because they looked like a wierd hybrid of chicken, turkey and goose ...
great shot of the fawns, realizing how hard it is to get a focused photo from a moving boat !
upside-down plant = definitely the HYDROponic version
stay cool -SueP

Matt said...

I saw that same duck, and its mate, on a sand bar Saturday evening. Beautiful birds. I didn't make it much farther upstream, though, because the river got quite shallow, and I kept running aground. Also, I didn't see an easy way through a blowdown. Fishing is my main pursuit, and it didn't seem that the shallows would be productive so I turned around. However, I wondered to myself if I would have found a great spot if I persisted through the shallows. Maybe next time.