A Pleasant Farewell to Summer
A deep blue sky, lower humidity, temperature in the low 60s, and a light breeze. Most comfortable weather for a morning of paddling on the last day of summer.
I was in my kayak on the lower Connecticut River in East Haddam by 8:30. I took advantage of the last 90 minutes of a rising tide to head upriver from the state boat launch below Gillette Castle. Despite bothersome rotator cuff tendonitis in both shoulders, I found it reasonably smooth going. A weekday after Labor Day and the river had few boats. All good.
High up in a riverside snag was a bald eagle, just high enough that he didn’t flush when I not only passed by, but stopped and glided toward shore to get a decent photo. Cormorants. Osprey, kingfishers, mute swans. Just about every hundred yards were great egrets. Big, all white with yellow bill and black legs, you can’t miss them.
Poking along close to the shore, as I often do, I came upon one colony of sneezeweed after another - Helenium autumnale is abundant in the lower Connecticut River marshes in late summer and early fall.
After about 2 miles of paddling I took a right into a channel that leads to Chapman Pond, which, despite its name, is actually a cove and freshwater tidal marsh. The tidal marshes in the lower reaches of the 410-mile-long Connecticut are ecologically prized habitat. I had the place to myself, brushing up against the edges of marsh, flushing one bird after another.
But for the occasional small plane coming in to land at the nearby airstrip, the pond was quiet. For perhaps half an hour I just let the boat mostly drift, touching paddle to water now and then, listening, looking. Water, marsh and woods. That was it.
Caught the beginning of an outgoing tide as I headed back downriver.
Not long after launching I came upon this bald eagle at river’s edge. The bald eagle was a species almost never seen in summer along the Connecticut River 40 years ago. But with a robust recovery nationally and in Connecticut in recent decades their numbers keep growing. Click to enlarge.
Great egrets were a regular part of the scenery all morning. Click to enlarge.
Sneezeweed with its striking yellow flowers blooms abundantly in sheltered water in the lower Connecticut River in late summer and early fall. Click to enlarge.