Contributed by Adrien Williams

I asked Mrs. England if we could go for a walk in the woods and go up in the upper Marsh.  I wanted to get outside and we both decided to see if we could walk across the beaver dam and follow the edge of the water and see where the road was flooded.  The “road” isn’t usually flooded and our class is planning to walk through the road along the upper Marsh from Watts Avenue to Ponderosa.  Mrs. England invited Eli Miller to come along because he made wood duck nesting boxes that are up there and he knows lots about the ground up there.  We started out after school was over, Tuesday, April 11th.

We started in from Watts Ave and I recorded a track on the GPS unit I was carrying so we could see exactly where we went and where the flooding was.  Before we even got to the woods, we saw deer tracks.  The water was going around the end of the beaver dam.  There’s a lot of water coming through. I think if the dam ever went out it would flood the main road down by the culvert.

 

          

When we followed the trail we didn’t go far before it was under water.  I saw about ten minnows in the flooded wheel ruts.  I tried catching them with the net and got one.  We are wondering what kind of species it is.  We were seeing geese and ducks flying around back here, more than in the Marsh itself.  In the distance we could see a wood duck box.

We went around the wet spot through a field and when we stepped back in the woods we found a giant ant hill.  Then we went through a thicket, then it opened up again and there was another beaver dam.  We checked out a flooded area behind this beaver dam and some ducks flew off the water.  I was first to walk across the beaver dam where if you fell over you might go in about four feet of water.  Then Mrs. England came across.

We crossed the trail and into the woods to see the duck box.  I noticed there were two bones under a log Mrs. England had walked over.  I think they may go to a duck, because they are similar to the gull skeleton in the science room, but not the same.  There were all kinds of geese along the edges and we stood quietly so they didn’t fly away.  Along this edge, Eli told us the channel could be ten feet deep.  There was a LOT more marsh up there.  So far, it was like seeing two whole regular Marshes, or more than ten football fields.  Then we had to head back to school because we had run out of time.  We both want to go back and canoe the whole upper part.

I liked that I got to walk in the woods and how big the upper Marsh was.  I was surprised there were so many ducks and geese up there.  I can’t wait to go back.