By Jim Horton
The weather was perfect! Blue skies and low humidity made for an awesome day on the water. Our group of 17 met at Blues Canoes in Edinburgh at 9:30AM. After a long time waiting, we were finally on the bus ride to our drop off site.
Once in the water, Ethan Estabrook found a northern water snake just across the bank. It had a beautiful ventral side with orange and pinkish coloration.
The river was swarming with groups of kayakers all day. The HHS group did our best to avoid the masses but it wasn’t easy. Turtle numbers were down compared to previous years. Species recorded were red-eared slider, northern map, spiny soft shelled, Ouachita map turtles. Although not an official count, I believe we roughly came up with about 40 to 50 turtles.
Northern waters snakes were plentiful. Many were on snags near fast flowing current. Unfortunately, they were too difficult to photograph. Others were captured, identified, photographed, and released. We had the usual, “Is that a snake in your hands?” from passing boaters. We would give a calm answer of “Yes”. Of course, the “You’re crazy” and other unmentionables were uttered from the curious and serpent fearing.
The group recorded two Queen snakes on the river float. One slipped right through my hands and everyone jokingly let me know afterwards. Another gravid queen snake was captured, admired, photographed, and released.
We are known to make many stops along the river. Snacks, liquids, rock skipping, disc throwing, and exploring are part of the stops. Some of our crew even swam while we were beached along a shoreline. At one of our afternoon beach stops, we found a five-lined skink along the shoreline that was injured. It was most likely hit by a sliding kayak. Various minnows, tiny catfish, and toadlets were also found while exploring the shoreline.
About halfway through the float, we enjoy stopping under a large old, iron bridge. At the base of each end are large stones securing the bridge frame. In the cracks between the rocks, one can easily count on seeing a water snake or two taking refuge from the sun (and kayakers). We saw a few among rocks but our young member, Ravi Shanker was determined but unable to retrieve one for photos.
This event almost didn’t happen. Apparently, the livery had rented out their entire fleet of kayaks/canoes days before our trip. Big THANK YOU to Ethan Estabrook obtained enough kayaks for our group the day before. He even rented a trailer to transport them! Without him, we would have been in big trouble.
It was another great day on the water with wonderful people!
The HHS Kayak Float is always a fun trip!