OUR DETROIT RIVER

A Bald Eagle, head and tail glowing white in the sun, arcs around the island. Legs outstretched it scrapes the water with a mighty whoosh of air and water, arcing back upward, a large fish writhing in its talons. Nearby on a point jutting out into the water, an Osprey watches intently from its perch high in a tree overlooking the water. Dense shrubbery lines the water’s edge.

What seems a homogenous sea of dark greens, on closer inspection reveals a gray and black sentinel. It’s a Black-Crowned Night Heron. As the eyes adjust, there’s another and another and another. At least thirty of these birds with swooped back crests guard the entire shoreline. A canoe paddle softly dips into the water, barely breaking the silence. As the craft glides along, dragging on the floating and emergent vegetation, blue-wing teal, ducks with white crescent moon faces, are everywhere ahead. One, two, three....twenty...twenty-nine...forty-one...fifty-six...there’s just too many to count! The canoe glides into a small inlet, the water covered with a blanket of lime green, tiny dots of duckweed plants, and large trees bending over in obeisance.

Just rounding a bend, there’sa clamorous splash, thunderous whoosh and loud cackling, as the huge gray form springs over the canoers heads--a Great Blue Heron! A little further, there’s rustling in a small group of trees. Looking up, the crowns are full of these three foot tall lanky birds, looking very out-of-place,
and seemingly defying the strength of the small twigs that supported them. The canoe turns another bend, and continues. Now the sleek, white Common Egrets dot the trees, two, three, four...fifteen, sixteen.... Steering back out toward open water, a Yellow Legs sandpiper probes a sandspit, while a Common Tern glides by and is quickly gone.

The Everglades? the Okefenokee Swamp? A tropical rainforest? No. Amazingly, its the view of two people canoeing on the Detroit River around Humbug Island and Marsh just this summer, the year 2000! The canoe trip seems like a step back in time.

--James N. (Jim) Bull, in Hartig, J. 2003. Honoring Our Detroit River, Ch. 11, p. 141: Flora and Fauna of the Detroit River Environs: Biodiversity and Abundance Past, Present and Future Prospects by James N. Bull and Julie Craves