De Pan

Woodpeckers

For awhile and at times, it almost didn't make sense.  The wind had come up as I drove in on the beautiful, winding and narrow Joshuatown Road.  The wind that was building on the river would not show itself in those dense eastern hardwoods, even with the leaves off as they were.

I started near the Chester Ferry, which was running for the last day this year.  The two of us were ready to go at the same time, but the ferryman waved me past...and into the teeth of the wind as I rounded the dock.  And so it was a claw into the wind, but near shore and without much in the way of waves.  The worst that was likely to happen was that I would be blown to shore and have to walk my canoe for a distance.  And every time the wind seemed too strong to make much headway, it dissipated and convinced me to keep going as it was only a mile to the inlet behind the island, where I knew that I would find comparative tranquility.


Once in the narrow channel, the wind lessened and I could bask in the sun and rest without being blown backwards.  Two swans occupied the entrance bay and a single female mallard was near shore.  Most of the other waterfowl were probably out of the wind somewhere out in the marsh.  But, with the tide at its lowest, those side channels were not paddleable.



I saw a couple hawks, but at such a distance that I could not identify them.  I spotted two downy woodpeckers working rotten trees near the shore.  I photographed one that was fully inverted on the underside of a tiki-log.  They did not seem to mind me or the wind.