Wrapped up the month of March with paddles on the Charles River alongside Broadmoor (above) in Natick last Saturday, and the Sudbury River in Lincoln/Concord yesterday. It won't be long before the trees lose their skeletal look and vegetation starts leafing out. The confluence of Indian Brook and the Charles provided a theme of water and sticks......with a similar sight on the Sudbury River...
Thursday, March 31, 2022
Water and Sticks
Wrapped up the month of March with paddles on the Charles River alongside Broadmoor (above) in Natick last Saturday, and the Sudbury River in Lincoln/Concord yesterday. It won't be long before the trees lose their skeletal look and vegetation starts leafing out. The confluence of Indian Brook and the Charles provided a theme of water and sticks......with a similar sight on the Sudbury River...
Thursday, March 24, 2022
A Nashaway Nest
Got out on the Nashua River in Groton, MA yesterday. The busy winds of the past few days had finally calmed down a bit. The hilarious call of a male pileated woodpecker preceded this glimpse of him...
Later in my paddle I ran across this active eagles nest...
I'm guessing the one in the nest is incubating an egg or two.Don't know if the fish were biting but the water's surface was busy with recently hatched flies...
Trash included 42 nip bottles...
Sunday, March 20, 2022
The Last Look of Winter
Yesterday didn't turn out to be the all-day rain event the weather forecasters had predicted. When this became apparent at noontime I headed out onto a gray and drizzly Assabet River in Maynard and Stow on the last full day of calendar winter. Most of the day's color was courtesy of the male wood duck...
Visited the eagles nest where according to the info on the Mass.gov website there may be an egg or two...
According to the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, "The female Bald Eagle lays one to three (two average) dull white eggs several days apart, usually between early March and early April. The eggs are incubated (mostly by the female) for approximately 35 days until hatching."On the way back downriver I came upon the same dark-around-the-eyes eagle often encountered within a one mile radius of the nest...
At one point in our encounter I got "the look"...
A modest amount of trash encountered along the way...
Thursday, March 17, 2022
Heard Pond with Ease
Rarely have I been able to so easily access Heard Pond (above) from the Sudbury River as I did on Tuesday. Most of the brambles usually encountered along the pathway were submerged making for an easy passage. The day was a classic spring beauty with not even a solitary ice cube to be found.
Plenty of red-winged blackbirds as well as mergansers, wood ducks, and a marsh hawk. Between Route 20 and Pelham Island Rd. large bird circled above...
Initially thought it to be an immature eagle but now wonder if it may have been a turkey vulture. The object of its attention appeared to be this deceased mute swan...Saturday, March 12, 2022
Back to a Hot Spot
Got in one last Standard Time paddle yesterday on a 2-mile stretch of the Nashua River from the Oxbow NWR's south end. The day was a beauty with temperatures in the mid fifties F. and winds being relatively calm for a change. River levels remain high and the meadows near the Still River were flooded over...
A little after noontime a later than usual CXST freight train (Q427) crossed the river on its way towards Worcester providing some moving graffiti to compliment to the bridge's permanent drawings...
Moving at a slow pace it took awhile until the last car cleared the bridge...
This was first visit to this stretch of the Nashua in 2022. It was a hot spot for trash last year and yesterday it provided yet another bounty of plastic containers, Styrofoam, and nip bottles...
Counted the nips...211 of them.
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
Spring Gets a Toehold
River water levels have dropped half a foot in the past week as can be seen at the Egg Rock inscription above. The drop left a fragile ice shelf reaching out from this tree...
Heading down the Concord River this past Sunday morning it quickly became apparent that large groups of birds were out and about. Included among the robins, red-winged blackbirds, cardinals, kingfishers, was this bluebird...
...and this pair of hooded mergansers...