Jun 8 Little River Paddle to Capelsie and back

 

Today's paddle is on the Little River near Troy. We are in the backwater of a dam, paddling upstream a couple miles to another dam. There was a very slight flow so paddling upstream was about the same as downstream. 

This paddle was organized by Crystal Cockman of Three Rivers Land Trust. I have used her photos here.

The river narrowed and we needed to paddle hard and maneuver around rocks as we approached the dam. Hidden in the foliage on the the left of this photo are the remains of the Capelsie Mill which the dam provided the power for. It dates to 1898 when A W Capel began spinning cotton into yarn. That business did not survive the Great Depression, closing in 1931. Several years later in 1935, AW's son A Leon Capel bought the mill to make braided rugs. He had started the business as a teenager back in 1917 making braided rugs with second quality and closeout yarns. His father's business had been the source for some of his yarn needs. This was the first manufactured braided rugs. Braided rugs had been around for a long time but they were handmade with scrap cloth. The business thrived and is still in around today. Capel Rugs no longer are made in the mill. It has been abandoned for some time now.

Prothonotary Warbler

Here is an interesting piece about the bird copied from Wikipedia:

The prothonotary warbler became known to a wider audience in the 1940s as the bird that established a connection between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

On August 3, 1948, in a hearing before the committee, Chambers accused Hiss of being a communist spy who sought to infiltrate the U.S. government. Two days later, Hiss testified before the committee and claimed, among other things, that Chambers' allegations were false and that he did not know Chambers.

However, future U.S. president, Richard Nixon, who was then a freshman congressman on the committee, became convinced that Hiss had committed perjury at the hearing. To verify this suspicion, the committee had Chambers appear before it again on August 7, 1948, to testify about his relationship with Hiss. At that hearing, Chambers testified that Hiss enjoyed bird-watching, and once bragged to Chambers about seeing a prothonotary warbler along the Potomac River. When Hiss appeared before the committee again, he haphazardly confirmed spotting a prothonotary warbler on the Potomac, causing many members of the committee to become convinced of the pair's acquaintance. Ultimately, the Hiss-Chambers hearing led, in part, to Nixon's political rise.

The star of the show today is this Green Heron. It fled into the foliage on our upstream paddle but posed nicely on our return visit. Often you see them with the neck all scrunched into the body looking as if they don't have much of a neck. Green Herons, like some other herons, can use bait, like a twig dropped in the water to lure fish.