Scappoose Bay at Flood

Had a wild paddle in Scappoose bay last week. We have been having an extremely rainy spring and all of the rivers and streams have been in near flood stage for a few weeks. The Columbia is just getting ready to crest at just a little below official flood levels. The river is higher than I have ever seen it and this really fills up Scappoose bay (which is really just a little offshoot of the Columbia river sort of in the general confluence of the Columbia and Willamette). Now the water level in the bay is often high this time of year and I have written about other expeditions up into the trees of the little offshore islands, but this year the river is about a foot higher than I have seen it.

The other thing is that this water is relatively clear and clean, so you have pretty good visibility into the plants and things that are now below the surface. I am not saying it is actually clear. Just clear relative to usual. Maybe 1 to 2 feet of visibility. We could certainly see the Blackberry bushes down underwater at the kayak launch ramp.

We had the idea that we were going to do some bird watching and try to find our way to the Great Blue Heron rockery that is down at the east side of the bay.  This can be very hard to get to at low water, but at high water, you just need to know which direction to paddle in.  And that is pretty easy as there is good cell signal out there. 

So we go off paddling and decide that we will find our own trail through the trees. At this depth of water, there is pretty much nothing stopping you from paddling except the tree trunks themselves. All of the usual brush of blackberries and brambles and marsh grass and fallen logs and stumps are all a foot or two underneath you and you can just glide on through playing zig zag through the trees. We took turns leading and it is fun to glide through the trees using your paddling skills to avoid the occasional low hanging branch or floating log. 

We eventually came to a open waterway that I recognized as the major stream through the wooded area that is usually the way you would go to get into the interior of the island during normal water levels. Today we just used it as a landmark and followed it around to where we could see the big trees that we though were the GBH rookery. 

As we glided up toward the big oaks that the Herons were nesting in (we can hear them) we are crossing a big open expanse of water that a few weeks ago must have been a grasses filled meadow. We can tell because we can see the seed grain heads of the grasses waving a few inches below us underwater. Just enough are sticking up above the water to coat our boats and us with seeds and such. The grass allergic amongst us were not having fun at this point. 

We paddled past where the Heron were to get around behind the Rookery. You can’t normally do this because we were paddling in what was really a farmers field, but we certainly weren’t hurting anything today. We heard this ruckus noise that went on and on that I identified as someone trying to start an old truck. But then we saw some movement in the trees and it became clear that the Herons were making that noise squawking at each other (or perhaps at us).  The noise they make and the way they commit to a lumber launch into flight makes me think that this is what pterodactyl must have looked and sounded like. Great huge noisy flying machines.

Later we were starting to paddle back and I was skirting some thick trees when I came to a place where real grass was growing on what was apparently a mound above the water. Just as I got close, a beaver say up, gave me exasperated look and then turned around and lumbered into the water. Turned out he was probably asleep on a big floating log (perhaps a man-made thing) that had grass growing on it and was probably one of the only dry flat places in the area as it floated up with the flood. 

We went back through the trees on the way home and found our way out to the lake that is in the middle of the little island. Of course, with the water this high the lake is just the place where there are not any trees. 

Just as we got back to the launch site, we saw an osprey stooping in for the kill. He was way high up and did sort of 2 stoops and then hit the water with a great splash. And then. He stayed in the water. He tried to get out a few times but just couldn’t quite do it. He was just lying there sort of on the top of the water with his wings all splayed out looking like he was tired and perhaps hurt. He did another big attempt at getting out the water and we could see that he had himself a fish. A Fish! Perhaps too big a fish. A fish so big that he couldn’t get out of the water and back into the air carrying it. He finally gave up and flew up out of the water with his claws empty. He circled around and landed on a piling sticking out of the water over near the island, looking a big disgruntled. I am sure he was thinking “How am I going to explain this to the guys? They are never going to believe the size of that fish!!” 

See, I figure all fishermen are alike even if they are really fisher birds.