Terry Anderson's KLOG
June 11, 2006 1:30-4:30 PM
South River off Raritan River (near New Brunswick)
Launch site: Raritan River, Martins Creen (boat ramp at end of Meadow
Rd. Edison Township)
Google
Earth Placmark *
Low tide about 3:03 PM
I put in at the same launch site as May 7, 2006, a small Edision
Township park with a boat ramp, next to a creek variously named Mill
Brook and Martins Creek. This time I went downstream through
Rocky Reach to South River, the first navigable tributary on the right
bank (south side of Raritan River). The mouth is right beside
green navigation marker 39. There was a nest at the top of the
navigation marker that was occupied. When I first passed it I
could only see a white or grey head, but I suspect it is an osprey nest. On my return
later, I saw a pair of Osprey flying
near it. Before reaching the navigation marker I saw a Cormorant in the Raritan which flew
away.
I went up the South River nearly 2 miles until it got too shallow to
paddle. Google Earth and maps show that it connects to Washington
Canal and then continues up stream, but it appears that the canal takes
most of the water flow for the river and so it becomes very shallow at
low tide before the connection. I had hoped to make a circuit by
going to the canal and using it to return to the Raritan but could not
get through the shallows. I will have to try it again nearer high
tide. About halfway up South River disturbed a pair of Egrets standing on mud flats on the
right. One flew away but the other just moved a little and passed
only about 30 feet away just as it caught a crab in the water and brought it up
the beach setting it down briefly before flying away with it.
Near where I ran out of water depth I startled a large Great Blue Heron
standing in the water in one of the side tributaries (too small to
paddle at low tide).
The River follows near the east side of what appears to be a very large
landfill. Over the river, or more likely over the landfill, I
watched a group of ten raptors slowly circling. Most were too
high to identify but were presumably the same type that I saw on May 7
and the few I saw lower appeared to be the same as those I saw flying
near navigation marker 39. They may all be ospreys or some hawk.
After I had to turn around, I returned to the Raritan and continued
down stream another mile to navigation marker 37 (the start of Long
Reach). I had hoped to get to the mouth of the Washingon Canal to
evaluate its interest for another day, but turned around at that point
since there was a strong northwest wind and I wasn't sure how slow it
would be paddling upstream against it and my time was running
out. Turned out to not be as bad as I feared and so I explored a
tributary on the upstream-right bank (north) that was about half way
between navigation marker 39 and 37 (there is no 38) about 1/2 mile
downstream from the mouth of South River. There are a couple of
very shallow creeks near the area but this is very straight and deeper
so probably a canal. It goes about 1/3 miles directly to an
industrial building but I did not get close enough to identify the
building. Just before it got that far it turned too shallow (it
was still near low tide). Since the tide was low the banks were
about 3 feet high mud before the bottom of the reeds. The mud
banks were covered with hundred of crabs (about 1-1/2-2" shells) which
scurried up and into holes in the bank.
* If you have Google Earth installed, you can
double-click on the attached Placemark file and it will fly you to a
location.
If not, you will need to install Google Earth first (available at
http://earth.google.com).