More Sure Signs

Red-winged blackbirds are one of the surest signs of spring around these parts and each year I look forward to my first sighting.  Yesterday, out on the Assabet River in Stow, there were plenty of them to be seen.  Joining them were robins and several varieties of ducks including these mergansers...
...and this lone bufflehead...

Wood ducks were also seen in respectable numbers.  A bald eagle leaving a tall pine near the inflow from Lake Boon may have been considering a duck for his next meal.

In keeping with the red-winged theme this canoeist, Domenic, was seen making his way downriver...


Also in keeping with the red theme was introducing my new red boat to some of my usual haunts.  In the process of our "shakedown cruise" the new boat made its first passage through the portal leading into Fort Meadow Brook...

...and by the time we stopped to visit the Stow Town Forest the shakedown was complete...

In addition to sharing the same color and similar dimensions as my recently retired "Squamish", the two boats' names share the same first four letters.  "Squall" is the name provided to my new boat by its maker.
Worthy of its predecessor it effortlessly brought home the small amount of trash we encountered...

I guess all of this goes to show that Kenneth Grahame's Water Rat was so dead-on right when he said "there's nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

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