On our hike in from Dobson Lane we heard a Gray Tree Frog call, and saw two adult Leopard Frogs along the grassy ATV-rutted track. Now at the river as I settle down to paint we hear the voices of three kinds of Ranid frogs calling from where
they are hidden along the water's edge - the "jugaroom" of a Bull Frog, a few banjo-string notes from hidden Green Frogs, and a single knock now and then from scattered Mink Frogs.
There is a narrow armouring of crushed rock along the shore where the pipeline crosses a little to my left, and there fred collects handfuls of drifted twiggy material sprinkled with aquatic snail shells - but here where I sit, the soft damp organic shore is thick with Reed Canary Grass, tall Carex, and Spotted Joe Pye Weed, with some Purple Loosestrife and Hog Peanut mixed in, and the water's edge is lined with a floating mat of yellowish algae laced with stems of Frogbit and sprinkled with duckweed. The Frogbit has begun to bloom - I can see one Buttercup-size white flower raised a bit above the small round floating leaves that look so much like miniature waterlilies.
Fred watches the silhouette of what must be a Green Heron flying south above the stream as I strive to capture the colours of the sky before it becomes too dark to see our way back to the truck. He has found some large Ramshorn snail shells but no mussels are evident on the shady bank under Soft Maples and Ashes to my right, where large-trunked Frangulous Buckthorn grow lush and dark.
On 20 June 2002 Bev Wigney and Eric Snyder canoed this stretch of the Jock, finding a rock cut and rapids, and then a path along the river and the railway line to delightful alvar-like limestone flats about 500 metres downstream. Then they paddled upstream past the pipeline crossing to a beautiful Silver Maple swamp. They noted all the birds that they heard, and photographed a sleeping Snapping Turtle and a Muskrat munching aquatic vegetation. Bev wrote "Eric and I paddled into that area of braided channels and up beyond that a couple of times, one of the most magical places I have ever been with the canoe in the Ottawa area."
Dear patrons and supporters,
Dear patrons and supporters,
The original oil painting, "Jock River Sunset" is available for $450 to support our exploration of the proposed route of the Energy East Pipeline. Please contact Aleta at karstad(at)pinicola(dot)ca.
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ReplyDeleteI've put Bev & Eric's account of this stretch of the river up at http://pinicola.ca/documents/JockR_Bev-and-Eric_2002.pdf
ReplyDeleteBev's original account, a series of little web pages, is at http://magickcanoe.com/jockriver1.html
One of the most striking things here was the streamside dominance of Shining or Frangulous Buckthorn, the most troubling invading shrub in eastern Ontario forests. Below the riverside Ash and Soft Maple trees, there was a tall understory of this thornless Buckthorn, with many stems 5-6cm DBH, and one that was 13 cm in diameter before it forked into two. It was easy to walk among them because not much was growing under them. It's hard to say if this is due to just being along the edge of the water, or some malign chemical influence of the Buckthorn.
ReplyDelete