This morning, I spent five hours kayaking in the Ottawa Marsh. Saw lots of Great Egrets, kingfishers, ducks of all sorts, and three juvenile bald eagles. Had no idea they have so much white on them when they're that age.
I hooked up with a group of like-minded folks I met on the Internets and was very glad to be along for the paddle. We put in at 126th and Old Allegan road and pretty much went from one end of the marsh to the other and back again. There wasn't very much open water, and I had a couple of times where I got hung up on sunken logs because my kayak was too long. Made it through with some creative paddling -- even went through one logjam backwards!
One of the highlights of the trip was maneuvering our way through some tight fits in a shallow maze of trees that looked like something out of a Brian Froud book. At one point we were flanked right and left by trees that had been toppled over into the water, their huge root systems still intact and forming a narrow passage between them Two ten-foot walls of dirt and exposed roots. And the best part was that the trees were still alive, though half-submerged. All the branches that were above water still had green leaves on them, turning autumn colors. There was also a tree that had tipped over -- but as it fell, its enormous root system folded on itself, forming an inverted-V of earth large enough to paddle through. Amazing.
I wasn't brave enough to risk any of my own electronics on the trip, but some of the other paddlers took some photos, so I'm hoping to post some of them soon.