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...

  

Merrimack River Accessible Again at Southwell Park

 

Wicasee Island was easily reached yesterday thanks to the boat ramp at Southwell Park in North Chelmsford, MA being open to the public once again.  The ramp has been closed to the public for several months while being used as a staging area by contractors working on the replacement of the Rourke Bridge just over a mile downriver.  

In addition to the ramp being re-opened, it's also been rebuilt...

Meanwhile, construction of the new bridge continues on the river's east side...

Paddling by I witnessed this hopefully unoccupied Porta-Potty going for a ride...

Boaters are guided by channel markers to the river's west side in the area of the construction project.  Hugging the west side brought me close to the spot where the Middlesex Canal once connected to the river at Middlesex Village.  Not much there other than a small culvert and a good sized piece of timber...

Another half mile brought me to the mouth of Black Brook...

The view downriver from Black Brook toward Pawtucket Falls...

The morning stayed mostly cloudy which was fine with me considering how humid it was.

Green herons were out and about for the second paddle in a row...

Trash was encountered but overall this section of river looked relatively trash free...

Got to admire the new boat launch again upon my return...

 

Reds and Greens

 

Sunday morning on the upper 3 miles of the Concord River had me seeing a profusion of red Cardinal flowers and a good number of green herons. 

Cardinal flowers were the dominant flower...

...far exceeding purple loosestrife and Joe Pye weed.  This must have been a banner year for the Cardinal Flowers as I don't recall ever seeing quite this many.

Green herons were seen in the area of Concord's Old North Bridge...

  This one made no effort to hide...

...while this one worked at disappearing...

A great blue heron stood its ground in the middle of the river...

One of the smaller birds out there was this juvenile sandpiper or perhaps killdeer...

Returned to Egg Rock later...

...and then paddled a mile or so up a very shallow Assabet River passing this spot...

...where the outline of a suspected stone fish weir can be discerned.

Trash from the Concord River...

Trash from the lower Assabet River...