Last of the Season?

First of the season is easy to mark. The first warbler, the first crocus up, the first paddle. We know we have been deprived and the first arrival or event is a joy, the mark of more to come. But last of the season is tricky. Sometimes it passes without realizing that was the last climb, the last rose in bloom, the final hummingbird at the feeder (or, the last kiss…). I was afraid I had already paddled my kayak for the last time this year. The trouble is, I didn’t remember that paddle, had not cherished each minute as it needed to sustain me for several months. So when a string of warm, sunny November days arrived, I decided that this was my chance. My final paddle of 2011.

I drove to the Tivoli landing at 3:30, late for a November paddle. The dock was underwater at high tide. “Four and a half feet of tide,” a motorcyclist loitering by the water’s edge said. He then asked if I had any matches.  I shoved onto the water as I smelled the distinct sweet smell of pot float out onto the water with me.

Just south of Callender house, a long, yellow mansion that grins down onto the water, I saw a mature bald eagle perched in a tree. A twin to this bird stood high in a pine tree at the northern tip of Magdalen Island. This seemed good luck.

The tide was so high I could barely slip under the railroad bridge and into the North Tivoli Bay. But once I squeeze through an even greater calm took hold. I realized I would be paddling into dusk and hoped for an owl—why not?—to come out and join me. 

I meandered past the dried cattails, the reeds now dusty beige. A swamp sparrow hopped up to look at me. I took my time, savoring the texture of the water, the clear coolish air, the quiet. Then I heard a shuffling along the shoreline, in the leaves. I imagined a beaver there, or some other animal coming to drink. To my surprise, there shuffled a pair of wood ducks. I had never been so near to these beautiful, vivid ducks,  with their magnificent colors—the glossy green of the male’s head and the distinct white circle around the female’s eye. I slid away, whispering to them: don’t move, stay right there. Still, they took off,  a rush of wings. They took to the air and looped south. I paddled on, unsettled that I had flushed these birds. And then: a shot rang through the air. I stopped paddling; my shoulders hunched. My wood ducks had been shot. I looked to the sky to see if one tumbled to ground. One duck lagged behind the other—perhaps wounded?—but they were both winging north. I watched until they disappeared on the horizon. I would never know what happened to those ducks. But my first thought was: I killed these ducks. If I had not flushed them they would be safe on shore in the north bay. And in that moment I vowed not to paddle in the bays during duck season again. This is not what I had in mind for my final paddle of the season.

I couldn’t bear to paddle on, so I turned around, heading back for the river. The sun made an indecent display as it sunk behind the Catskills. The colors were so wild, so vivid, for a moment I forgot my sadness over the ducks. I loitered in the wide bay by the tracks where a man stood, a pole extended into the water.

“Do you fish here often?” I asked.

“I do,” he said without looking toward me.

“Do you ever hear owls?” I asked.

“Not owls,” he said. “I saw one once, but it was hit by a train.”

No, this was not what I was looking for on my final paddle of the season. I coasted out of the bay and back onto the river, then chugged my way north. As I pulled my boat out at the dock—now above the tide line—darkness set in. And I thought: this can’t be my final paddle of the season. Though it is often the complexity of the river that intrigues me—tug boats sharing the water with kayaks, industry next to snapping turtles—on this final paddle I wanted only the good. So I will go out one more time looking for an outing that leaves a cleaner taste, a happier memory.

Hunting

“The river is calm,” the man said, walking past me and my boat. I nodded in agreement. But he wasn’t a boater, just a man at the launch at 7 in the morning with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

The water grabs my ankles, seeps through my aqua socks. Too cold already.  I slip into my boat and settle in. A few strokes out I pause to take stock of a large freight boat shoving north. The water is calm, for now. Ten minutes later the bow of my boat slaps into the water.

The far shore is speckled with the early morning light, while the eastern shore remains cloaked in shade. I have on two jackets to keep warm. But the rotation of my shoulders and torso warms me quickly. I spy a few yellow-rumped warblers in the scraggly bushes that grow in the rocky shoreline.

The north Tivoli Bay lures me in. As I glide under the train overpass, the stillness of the bay immediately wraps me like a comfortable blanket. I stop paddling and coast.  In front of me is a dock that cut loose during Hurricane Irene. It washed into the Bay a few weeks ago and stands there, an odd adornment in a wide bay.

I move forward, wondering what treasures I will find this morning in the north bay when gunshots erupt from the reeds. My shoulders hunch. Duck season. I should have known that the same place I wanted to be would be where a hunter wanted to be. Part of me believes we can both be in this bay, part of me doesn’t want to get hit by a stray bullet.

Just as I decide I should backtrack onto the river I hear the call of a great horned owl.  Hoot hoot hoot hoot. It’s like a magnet to my heart and I forge into the bay. I follow close to the reeds, spying white throated sparrows, and  a chipping sparrow or two. Swamp sparrows peak out at me when I pish.  

Though I’ve decided to go into the bay, I’m not at ease. I try and calm my thoughts, which ping with ideas. The shots I heard were to the south. Hunters shoot at close range, and I’m visible in my pepto-bismol pink boat, wearing a blue jacket.

Truth is, I have respect for many hunters. They know these woods, the bays and the secret spots where ducks hide better than I do. They know ducks better than I do (this actually isn’t saying much! Ducks are low on the list of birds I am capable of identifying). But I wish they didn’t need to bring them out of the sky. As my friend Sonia said, “I just don’t like guns.” It’s that simple.

I spy a marsh wren, tail erect, in the cattails. A white throated sparrow practices its song. And then there’s the owl again. As I round a bend, my heart races, but not for the bird; I’m wondering if a hunter is around the corner. It’s happened before. But I often don’t see the hunters in their camouflage until I’m right next to them.

Today, though, there’s no hunter. And I start to wonder about insisting on paddling on, on insisting on sharing this marsh area when the sounds of guns in the distance leaves me on edge. The point of the paddle is to take in the morning light, the morning peace.

The owl hoots one more time, then I turn and take sure strokes back to the wide river.