Wonders of the Rivanna

Clay dropped me and the canoe at the Rt. 600 bridge over the Rivanna River early this morning.  It was light but the sun wasn't fully up.  I had plenty of clothes and a thermos full of coffee, and I had the river to myself. 

I wasn't too far into the trip when I encountered Other Otter.  I've identified two otter dens on this stretch of the Rivanna.  The first is not far from the Rt. 15 bridge near Palmyra, that's my ending point.  The one I call "Other Otter" is quite a ways upstream, not too far from where I put in at the Rt. 600 bridge.  I spotted him,  he spotted me, and then he disappeared under water.  Otters are curious creatures though, and shortly thereafter he popped his head up out of the water probably not 20 feet from my canoe, wanting to see if I was still there, what I was doing, and where I was going.  He disappeared again and I went on my way. 

Not long after that I scared a bald eagle off his perch.  He flew downstream ahead of me, his white tail clearly visible.  He didn't go too far and I spotted him again perched in a bare tree, his white head making identification easy and then another view of his tail as he flew off further ahead of me.

I saw a couple of ospreys, but kingfishers were the bird of the day; there were many of them all along the river.  They seem to serve as the river's early warning system as they would chatter noisily every time I approached.  I did manage to come upon a group of about a half dozen ducks and a dozen or more geese that were resting in a quiet backwater created by a fallen log.  The ducks were the first to spot me and take flight.  The geese swam out into the middle of the river to have a look at what had spooked the ducks and then they took off, beating the water with their wings and then flying in unison just a couple feet above the water.  It was a very pretty sight with the early morning sun shining through the trees.

The mist rising from the surface of the river as the sun was rising was very pretty.  It really wasn't terribly cold starting out.  A breeze came up along with the sun, however, and that had a bite to it.

I spotted a couple deer along the bank.  They apparently weren't paying much attention because I had almost passed them before they realized I was there.  They ran along a rather steep bank as if unsure whether to climb the bank or cross the river.  One just stopped, froze, and starred at me for a bit.  Except for the white tail, they were very well camoflaged, a perfect match for the dull, gray/brown color of the riverbank. 

No cooler full of beer today.  I was very happy to pour a cup of coffee from my thermos and sip it while I drifted.  We got about 2" of rain from Frankenstorm Sandy, enough to make the river floatable for the first time since mid-summer.  I have no pictures because of an unfortunate incident involving the camera.  I don't come off very well in that story so I will decline to elaborate.  Instead, or until I can salvage some pics from the memory stick, I'm providing some links and a map of the stretch of river I floated today from the Rivanna Conservation Society.  They are also here, on Facebook.

Double click on the map for an enlarged, more readable, version.