Oak hammock Marsh

Sat. Oct. 18th. was a very pleasant day so we decided that we needed to have another canoe trip before the cold weather would close in on us.

Oak Hammock Marsh is about 45 minutes west and a bit north of where we are located and is out side of the city. It is a conservation area and the marsh has controlled water and plant growth to attract the water fowl especially at the migrating seasons. Generally there would be thousands of geese and ducks in the area at this time of year.

We were told that the best place to put the canoe into the marsh was on the north basin so this is where you see us launching from. As soon as Helmut put the canoe down all of the geese and ducks that were in the near vicinity took to the air and dispersed to a different part of the marsh.

All this beautiful wide water body is hardly more than two feet deep and we wondered if we would become stuck in some places but we were able to keep the canoe afloat as we paddled or "poled" with the paddles around this basin in and out among the reeds and cattails. We saw a few more water fowl but mostly they were scared off before we were close enough to get a good look.

After our canoeing excursion as we drove back along the road we saw this beautiful Snowy Owl sitting beside one of the water inlets a few meters (yards) from the road. It stayed put in its place until Helmut tried to sneak up rather close to get a better look and photo. Most of the pictures were taken using the zoom feature on the camera.

Near the marsh there are lure crops planted for the geese to feed on so we saw more geese there - both Canada geese and another type that is white - you can barely see the difference as they are in flight in the picture. ( double click the picture to enlarge it.)