Upper Reaches Photography Paddle

This post is on behalf of NSRWA board member and talented amateur photographer Andy Hebert, who led the Upper Reaches Photography Paddle on June 20th.


Despite a wet and overcast last couple weeks, this past Saturday showed patches of blue sky and some sunshine providing a very pleasant morning for taking pictures on the upper reaches of the North River and the Herring River. The six of us started for a slow, leisurely paddle down the Indian Head River from the Hanover Canoe Launch and up the Herring River and back again.

The river is just beginning to show us the extensive wild rice beds that can be found in this section of the river that are a major attraction during the late summer and fall for various bird species. This time of the year and throughout the summer wadding birds are frequent visitors here fishing in the shallows for the small bait fish that hide amongst the grasses and water plants.

Some subjects require a little patience and a slow approach but can often be a willing model if you don't startle them as can be seen in the next few photos of a Great Egret preening and drying itself after fishing in the shallows.


During the spring the river comes alive with an infinite variety of shades of green with wonderful splashes of colors in yellows, purple, white etc. All of these wonderful photos were taken by the paddlers and are just a small sample of the great
photos taken this past Saturday.




Photo credits: #1, #6 - Susan Driscoll; #2 - Rain Rodolph; #3 - Andy Hebert; #4, #5 - Craig Bradley

Three Projects, Three Places

I know that things have warmed up (even if it feels more like April out there) because its monitoring season. During the late spring, summer, and early fall, a lot of the work I do involves monitoring of some sort. Here's the rundown on the monitoring from this week:

Tuesday I went to Inner Little Harbor to collect a water sample for nutrient and chlorophyll analysis. I have been trying to do this on a weekly basis to supplement the data being collected with two automatic water quality loggers that have been deployed there by my CZM South Shore counterpart, Jason Burtner, and the Mass. Bays Monitoring Scientist, Christian Krahforst. The point of all this data collection is to understand Inner Little Harbor's water quality dynamics in relation to the management of the tide gate at Cat Dam. Hopefully this data will help inform management of the tide gate in a way that reduces eutrophication (excess nutrients and algal growth). My role is to collect the water sample and process it by filtration (using the Cohasset Center for Student Coastal Research lab) - the filter will be used for chlorophyll analysis and the filtrate (leftover liquid) for nutrient analysis.

On Wednesday I went out for some water testing on the North and South Rivers for our annual Riverwatch program. Although we are not training volunteers until June 30th (please join us!) I wanted to start collecting data, so I went out with our intern Adria. We also had a chance to do some additional testing of some stormwater catchbasins on the North River that may be contributing bacteria - we'll let you know if we find anything!

On Thursday I was joined by Jo Carey of Mass. Riverways for some habitat and water quality monitoring in the two impoundments on First Herring Brook - Old Oaken Bucket Pond and the Reservoir. This is the third year of monitoring to check whether the water quality in the impoundments is supportive for fish and other creatures as part of a larger First Herring Brook Restoration project. I can't say that it's a really tough time to have to kayak on the two water bodies, although we were getting bit by no-see-ums on Old Oaken Bucket, and I fell into the Reservoir getting out of my kayak (happens about half the time - I'm not very good at that.) One pleasant surprise from this sampling was seeing water flowing through the Reservoir fish ladder, which we hadn't seen during the previous two summers.

More monitoring news as the summer progresses!

Teaching the Next Generation of River Stewards

The last couple of weeks the staff of the NSRWA have teaching 4th and 5th graders in Hull and Cohasset (all 226 of them!) about their watersheds, rivers, and water conservation. In both communities we took the kids to visit their water treatment plants, waste water treatment plants and to visit a rain garden as well as view their local rivers. The kids were fantastic! They really appreciated learning about where their water comes from, how we can conserve and protect it, and where it ends up.

Connecting these kids (and the chaperones!) to their local watershed and rivers gives them a real world understanding of the water cycle they learn about in school. And we provide them with some of the environmental issues that they need to understand in order to become the next generation of river stewards!

We will be continuing these field trips in the fall thoughout the South Shore as part of our Greenscapes education program. If you have a young person in your life interested in the environment (or you would like them to be) please consider having them join our Watershed Explorer's Club online!

Yoga At Couch Beach

This past Saturday was the start of another season of Yoga at the River's Edge, and the first time that I participated. Saturday's session was held at beautiful Couch Beach on the upper North River with Kezia Bacon-Bernstein, founder of Yoga at the River's Edge. I assure you that there are not many things more peaceful than deeply breathing pine-scented air with the river flowing along the marsh in front of you and red-winged blackbirds calling. As I'm new to yoga I had a little bit of trouble quieting my mind and not thinking about the natural world around me - even when I am totally relaxed I'm still thinking about the tide and birds! Perhaps that's ok.

I really enjoyed it and will try to be at as many sessions as I can, and will hopefully see you there. Next Saturday yoga is at the Marshfield YWCA on Little's Creek, a tributary of the South River.