Kayaking @ Tully Lake

Another kayaking!

Now snow is melted: trails in New Hampshire have more people. It is difficult to conduct social distancing on a narrow, steep trails. Compared to that, kayaking is much easier to have enough distance from other kayakers. Now our weekend activities are kayaking.

Sunny day

Today we went kayaking on river and Tully lake. We had emailed before if it is open and allowed to kayak. They said yes. The reason why we checked in advance was that the launching area was closed a week before. This time we made sure it was open and also we planned a back up place. Luckily it turned out to be a sunny warm day.

blue bird

Today we kayaked 6.6 miles, out and back, consisted of river portion and lake portion.
The highlight are animals.
First we saw a blue bird. The bird's silhouette is cute. Also without seeing their bodies we heard many birds' songs. 

red-winged blackbird

The next bird was red-winged blackbird. It was on the branch and calling a lot. Nice to see that. 

heron

Lastly we saw a heron. I took a picture it just left the rock.  It was big. 

Observing birds are relaxing and nice. Also just floating on a kayak  adds extra relaxing feeling. 

Birds are exciting, however, today's highlight of the highlights is a beaver!!!! It was my first time seeing a beaver. I have seen many beaver dams and beaver lodges but beavers themselves never came out and showed up. This time we spotted a beaver on the shore eating something! (right picture). 

A minute later he went into the water (the left picture), and started swimming. Since beavers can't breath inside the water, the head was out, but sometimes all the body was under the water. For example, there was log floating on his way, he went under the water to pass it. He swam very well! We kept a distance with him and continued observing. He swim fast!!

After I checked the recording of our kayaking, he swam 0.2 mile and disappeared, probably he landed somewhere.
He looked like he knew where he was going and had a very solid plan. Very cute and exciting!

Hope I will see a beaver again!