Morning on the River

Juvenile Bald EagleFall migration is underway. Lots of intriguing birds will pass through—although less brightly colored and less tuneful than in spring. What I hope for here in the Hudson Valley is the chance of seeing shorebirds. A few have been appearing—last weekend Black Bellied Plovers at Greig Farm. So as I headed onto the river this Sunday morning I had high hopes for what might be flying or floating through.

The weather report claimed rain and the sky over the Catskills loomed gray, but electric. I stroked to the Western shore of the river and wove through the water chestnut mat. A Spotted Sandpiper bobbed about and a dozen Great Blue Herons posed in the shallow water.

I pushed south, then back across the river to round the southern end of Cruger Island. There, like a giant loaf of bread, sat an immature Bald Eagle. It watched me as I floated nearer, then it took off to land at the top of a snag. There, it flared its wings, resplendent in the morning sun. In the sandy shallows of South Cruger Island a Lesser Yellowlegs tagged its way along the waterline, ignoring me in my pink boat. It wandered near my bow, then continued on its Yellowlegs way.

Lesser YellowlegsThe South Tivoli Bay is a wide open expanse, now clogged with water chestnut. The tide was heading out, so I pushed against the current to enter the bay. There, a half dozen Wood Ducks squatted on a log, then took off, crying like babies. In the distance I spied a white bird. A few weeks earlier I had found two juvenile Little Blue Herons on the bay. I stroked forward wondering if the birds were still around. One was. It poked about near my boat, caught a fish (lousy picture taken with a point and shoot as my good camera went for a swim). I floated and watched as I had a few weeks before, the bird insouciant. Soon, I turned to leave and to my left, a white bird flew toward me. “That’s a strange looking gull,” I thought. So strange it was another Little Blue. It landed near its pal and the two wandered off into the brown-green spatterdock.

I was feeling pretty cheerful about all of this, and the sun echoed that cheer by parting a few of the clouds in the sky. Things were now heading toward a fully beautiful day. I spied a kayak heading toward me, the paddler awkward in his boat, the paddles rising too high. “Susan?” I heard.

Logan paddling with his bikeIt was Logan, one of my wonderful students, who always has an adventure afoot. His odd stroke was because he had a bike wedged into his kayak. This is a kid who has biked across the country and plans to travel the world to bike, make bikes, fix bikes. He was heading south to pick up a sail boat he intends to live on this year.

“Can we talk about senior project sometime?” he asked.  Senior project is a year-long event for Bard seniors, and it brings out the best and worst in our students.

“Sure,” I said.

“When?” he asked.

“This seems a good time,” I said, and we rafted up. Work follows me onto the river, I thought, but this was certainly the best senior project meeting location I could think of. While Logan told me about his plans to look at homelessness and issues of sustainability in terms of housing I watched a snail work its way over his kayak.

I listened and gave advice as only one can in a kayak and told him to go and start writing. We soon waved goodbye and I took my own advice and headed home to write.

Little Blue

Mature Little Blue--seen in KansasI was birding the South Tivoli Bay with my friend, the biologist and ornithologist, Bruce Robertson. Birding with Bruce added another dimension to birding as he is filled with excellent bird information, which he gleefully transmits as we walk through the woods. He was describing shifts in gender roles for the Spotted Sandpiper, which we had just seen bobbing along the muddy edges of the bay. The females fight for territory, and to win the males. Once she lays her eggs, she leaves them for the male to incubate and to raise the young.

“Cool,” I said. I love it when nature confounds what is expected (and in the process confounds the biologists as well).

We walked in silence for a while, until we reached what is known as Buttock’s Island. It’s a sweet promontory with long views both north and south. The bay was choked with water chestnut, which covered the surface of the bay. Water chestnut is a beautiful plant, but it doesn’t belong here and has taken over the quieter parts of the Hudson. Except for pulling it out, no one has figured out how to contain it. I’ve mostly thought about water chestnut as hogging oxygen in the water, pushing out fish life. But as I scanned for shorebirds, I realized that their habitat was also being invaded by the water chestnut.

Paddling South toward Magdalen Island The South Tivoli Bay is isolated from the Hudson River by the train tracks, which slice off its western border. Three underpasses allow water to come and go. I scanned the edge of the bay, near the northern underpass where birds like to congregate in the deeper, moving water.  Immediately I spied a white dot picking through the water chestnut, barely visible through the heat haze of the morning sun off of the water.

“Not a Great Egret,” I said doing a little dance. That meant it was either a Snowy Egret, or a juvenile Little Blue Heron (a juvenile little blue is little white). Both were exciting birds for this area. A Little Blue appeared on Wappinger’s Lake this summer, but in the past in Dutchess County there were four sightings in the 60s, eight in the 70s, thirteen in the 80s, and three in the 90s. Where I had seen Little Blues in the past was Florida and Kansas.

We put up our scopes, but the distance and the haze left us guessing.  Bruce pulled out his iphone, and looked at photos of Little Blues and Snowys. He handed me his little screen with the photos, which I glanced at. What I saw there, in Technicolor detail, had little to do with the shimmering white thing in the distance. Bruce went back and forth, offering his ideas on what it could be then decided: Little Blue. It seemed a good guess, but to me was still in guess-land. I wanted to have more evidence.

The next morning at 5:15, I drove my kayak to the Tivoli launch and set out for the South Bay. I make it sound like I was on a determined quest. I was and I wasn’t—I had no real hope of seeing the bird or getting close enough to take a photograph. But I had to try.

I stroked past Magdalen Island and the entrance to the North Tivoli Bay, and continued another half mile south flanking Cruger Island. A mature eagle, its white head gleaming in the early morning sun, sat on an exposed branch, preening. An immature—perhaps one of the two fledglings from this year—let out its eagle yell and flew overhead. Cruger Island is one site where eagles have come to nest in recent years. There isn’t a paddle where I don’t see at least one.

Least Sandpiper working the shorelineAt the end of the island, I curved in around a rock outcropping toward the narrow passage between Cruger and South Cruger. It’s a quiet cove, and a great place to loiter for turtles, birds and humans. A few Canada Geese paddled the waters.  A Least Sandpiper worked the shoreline, exposed at low tide. Spatterdock stood tall in the shallow water, looking a bit worn by this time in the season. I pulled up my binoculars to watch the Least (can we change that name! this bird is small but it isn’t least anything) working its way along the shoreline. Binoculars focus the eyes, yet I still sensed something moving in my peripheral vision. I lowered my binoculars, to realize that my kayak was gliding in slow motion straight toward the white wading bird. It was not more than thirty feet from my bow.

My hands were shaking as I fumbled for the camera, wedged into a dry bag between my legs. I pulled it to my eye and snapped the first few pictures. Once I was sure I had something to work with I put the camera down and picked up my binoculars. Yellow legs. No other markings that led me to be sure of my bird. The Snowy and the juvenile Little Blue are maddeningly similar.

And then I decided that the ID mattered less than simply being there, enjoying this beautiful bird that was clearly not afraid of a woman in her pink kayak. We loitered there together, the bird busy wading thigh deep in the water foraging near the shoreline.  It moved with precision, and a certain nonchalance. From the spatterdock a second bird emerged, and the two worked together, wandering over toward the geese to find more food.

Juvenile LIttle Blue HeronI soon felt the need to head home and into my work day. I had dozens of photos and a sense of calm and I was calling them Little Blues. The birds, however, were not done with me. They flew over, and landed in front of me, emerging from the spatterdock once again to entertain me. But soon enough they wandered into the tall plants and vanished. I thought how if I had arrived at this moment, I never would have seen my Little Blue Herons.