We decided to go for our first paddle of the year so we loaded up the canoe and headed to the Moira River. I love paddling this river, it’s very long but lots of shorelines and little nooks and crannies to investigate. We usually see ducks, birds, swans, turtles, muskrats, Kingfishers and more.
The water was pretty warm getting into the canoe. And off we went to paddle for a couple of hours.
Today we saw something we haven’t seen before, a huge water snake sunning himself on a log in the water. We have seen LOTS of snakes but never sunning like this, it was quite something and he was not bothered by us at all. Of course if I was a snake, I would not be scared of anyone! A lot of people don’t like snakes, but I don’t mind them, they are interesting.
We saw a pair of swans, same area last year. We didn’t see a nest but we also didn’t paddle too close as we didn’t want them to be stressed. We could hear a Kingfisher and saw him flitting around but they are very elusive and hard to capture. We did see one last year and he sat on a tree limb for us for a long time so we could get photos. He was not in a cooperative mood today!
Lots of turtles were out and about.
We also paddled through what I call Frog City. It’s an area, actually there are a couple but one in particular, and it’s chock full of frogs. Today however the lily pads haven’t grown up yet and so all we saw were hundreds of tadpoles swimming around. We need some good hot days for the vegetation to grow and get the little ones going. Then it is nothing but lily pads and frogs, all over the place!
We also some a couple of herons. One of the herons we saw we both mentioned that he seemed to have different colouring than other herons we have seen. We have photographed tons and tons of them and this guy looked a little unusual. The best spot to photograph herons, for us anyways, is from our canoe. We have sat for ours waiting and photographing a heron.
So that was our day on the Moira River, Stay safe everyone!
Trums Travels 