In Search of Horseshoe Crabs

In May and June, at the evening high tide during the full moon, horseshoe crabs gather to spawn.

Today we kayaked during the daytime high tide, hoping to see lots of horseshoe crabs.

Farmland in Stratham

Just like last time, we launched at Chapman's Landing in Stratham, NH. The morning was cloudy, but warm.

For tide charts, the Squamscott River Railroad bridge tide chart is most accurate. The bridge is about 1 mile toward the Great Bay from Chapman's Landing.

Great Bay is amazingly calm today

After we kayaked down the Squamscott River and poked our noses into Great Bay, it was extremely calm. Often Great Bay has a lot of chop and whitecaps from the wind whipping across it.

Edge of Salt Marsh at Sandy Point

This area is prime horseshoe crab spawning area. Several years ago, we launched our kayaks from the small boat launch at Sandy Point Discovery Center, and could barely walk in the water because there were so many horseshoe crabs.

Osprey Platform at Sandy Point (never occupied as of 2008)

Horseshoe crab at the edge of the marsh

After kayaking along the edge of the bay, seeing a few horseshoe crabs, and many nesting ducks, we kayaked across the bay to Nannie Island.

Nannie Island

Common terns have nested on Nannie Island in the past. Nannie Island also boasts the largest oyster bed in Great Bay, approximately 30 acres in size - but it is in need of restoration.

If we'd snorkeled, we might have seen juvenile flounder, pipefish in the eelgrass or green crabs in the shallows around Nannie Island. It was warm today....but not that warm!!

Just a note: Nannie Island has a lot of poison ivy. Be careful!!!!


We're a short distance from Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge, visible across the water.

Cormorants on a small rock island

Horseshoe crab in the eel grass

It's a long way back to our launch!! We have to kayak basically all the way across this water. Good thing it's so calm today!

Leaving Nannie Island

We kayaked straight across the bay and back up the Squamscott River to Chapman's Landing.

I did try to snap a few bird pictures....but everything was coming out blurry.


We did see a changing of the guard at the osprey nest on the Squamscott River. One adult osprey flew to the nest. The adult on the nest flew off. That probably means that the adults are taking turns incubating eggs in that nest.

Once the young hatch, there will be a lot more visible osprey activity at the nest.

At the end of the day, my GPS read 9.58 miles. My arms were super tired. That's a long paddle for me - especially for my first week of paddling season!!

(We did kayak an extra mile at the beginning of the day when we arrived at the launch early and took a few pictures. Today maybe I shouldn't have gone the extra mile!)

Boats in the Water!

We've had great weather for kayaking, so we finally got our boats in the water!


We launched at low tide at Chapman's Landing in Stratham, NH and headed toward Great Bay along the Squamscott River, one of 5 tidal rivers that flows into Great Bay.


View Larger Map

NH Fish and Game maintains a parking area, boat ramp accessible at all tides, and rest room on the Stratham side of the Squamscott River off Route 108. Parking and launching are free.

The "accessible at all tides" feature of this launch is important because the tides in Great Bay change by 6.5 feet and the bay is shallow.....so even with a kayak it can sometimes be a long, mucky walk to shore if you try to land at low tide.

This area is also popular with birders because you can see an osprey nest and an expanse of salt marsh. In December, we watched large flocks of robins roosting from this parking area.

We decided to take a short paddle and head toward Great Bay. For a longer kayak, it's about 4.7 miles to Exeter along the Squamscott River. We usually try to time our trips with the tide, so that we can be going with the tide in both directions. Smart, eh?? (Wait, or lazy?)

I dangled my water thermometer in the water and got readings in the low 60's.....I would love to find an official online source of water temperatures in Great Bay!!! (In the spring the water is dangerously cold for longer than you'd expect.)


We kayaked past the osprey nest, but saw almost no activity there. We think there was a bird sitting low in the nest, which would be normal if they are incubating eggs.

The nest failed last year. I couldn't find data about this year. We didn't have binoculars with us, so it was hard to tell what was going on up so high.

Jim

The mouth of the Squamscott River is marked by this railroad bridge. It's about 1 mile from Chapman's Landing.


Sometimes we see cormorants sunning on the pilings next to the bridge.

Me - trying out my new hat

Poking our noses out into Great Bay

Great Bay is an important estuary in the northeast. At low tide, it can be extremely shallow - some parts are even too shallow for kayaks.


This is the new little waterproof bag we have for our camera. You operate the camera right through the bag. It's a little hard to work the buttons, and I was surprised that the pictures came out. But being such a dedicated blogger.....I needed to be able to capture pictures on the water without risking the camera!

We aren't skilled enough with it yet to photograph anything quickly. We saw but could not photograph a cormorant, great blue heron, hawks, turkey vultures, a possible osprey, and a mallard. Hopefully with practice we'll be able to show you some of the birds and wildlife we love to see when we kayak!