Friday, July 10, 2015

Canoeing the Beaver River, Part II

We continued down the river around bend after bend (see yesterday's post); the river meanders here around a lot of corners.  And we continued to see Egrets and Cormorants.

Remember this was late May, so the leaves were barely out, and very bright green.

I liked these lilypads but we only saw them in one place.

The troublesome black Cormorants perched on a number of tall dead trees.

I don't know much about them, but I know there are a lot of complaints about them where they over-populate the harbours around the Great Lakes.

We kept threading our way around log jams like this one, but had very little trouble getting down the river.  Only out of our canoes once.

And on the bank you could see where the ice floes during the spring run-off had torn the bark of trees near the river.  The water would be three feet higher for a time in the spring, and as the ice on the river broke up, the current would carry it all downstream bashing into the nearby trees.

Here's a slightly cropped version of the Egret picture I shared yesterday.

And this one was down at the river's edge, but flew away immediately after I snapped this picture.

And as we came around the final bend toward the bridge, there were three on the riverbank.  By the time I snapped the picture one was taking off, and one was lifting its wings to do so.  All three left quickly!  But we had seen at least 8 in the three hours.

So we drifted under the one-lane Epping bridge, and pulled out on the left bank, very pleased with our easy-going paddle!


16 comments:

  1. Absolutely beautiful. So peaceful.

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  2. Lovely river! A nice place to float a canoe.

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  3. Spring canoe trips are the best. Everything is waking up and everything smells so fresh. Great photos.

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  4. There is nothing quite like that spring green. And so many egrets! Very nice and peaceful little paddle. :-)

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  5. Good morning, awesome sightings during your canoe trip! I did not know the Cormorants were being such a pest! And the Egrets are beautiful sight to see! Wonderful series! Thank you for linking up and sharing your post! Have a happy weekend!

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  6. I would have loved to paddle down there. It looked so peaceful adn I loved the birds you say also. Have a lovely weekend.

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  7. It looks like a beautiful peaceful place to be. Being a person who is mostly landlocked I really like seeing these kind of photos.

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  8. The cormorants on the dead tree branches is awesome. Great pictures of a peaceful boat trip.

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  9. Great series of photos!
    Have a wonderful week-end!
    Lea

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  10. What a lovely day out. I have no desire at all to go white water rafting or any such scarily energetic adventures. But your gentle paddle looks just the job for me. Did you hear the egrets calling? I saw a flock at Aswan in Egypt and they made a noise like 'glub glub glub'.

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  11. love it. Always enjoyed float trips.

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  12. Gorgeous place to canoe! Love your beautiful photos!

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  13. We were just talking today that we need to get our kayak out and go out for a paddle. We don't have many places as tranquil as yours, but we do have some lovely lakes that have nice spots to camp. - Margy

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  14. Beautiful scenery along the river.

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