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...