Draft 2024, 2025

Song of the river. Continuous and ever changing song, remaining constant.

The alpine heights draining into ‘Rio de las Plumas’, Feather River, cascade through a deep and scoured canyon. No dams, docks, motorboats or diversions for sixty miles, the designated ‘Wild and Scenic Middle Fork’ flows from high ground, through canyon then northwest to descend the grand staircase of Feather River Canyon. Lake Oroville is the last stop before joining the Sacramento River and lapping toward the sea.

Originating on high ridges and flowing through steep upper canyon the Middle Fork then slows down, meanders a bit, becomes braided in spots. This is upper watershed, Mohawk Valley at four thousand feet, where ground water is recharged amid timber stands and golf courses.

Without a dam, Middle Fork flows can become ‘big, big’ during winter; at times a new beach may appear, boulders roll, willows become dislodged and smashed, gravel bars are moved and shaped. The change after a ‘big, big’ is immediately apparent with flotsam piled up against trees, dry ground bushes flattened and standing water rising below the deck.

Summertime flows can be very thin during dry years, the water creeping over bedrock sections with a slow brackish current. The crayfish don’t seem to mind.

Wildlife is abundant in the surrounding riparian habitat.

Sleek and shiny North American River Otters today, they with elongated bodies and stout necks. Climbing into view from the river up a steep rocky creek, the shiny coats at first startled me, a ‘wait, those rocks are moving’ moment. The shiny trio crept warily up the rocky white water, crouched. Above their cascade are braided river streams coursing through rocky bramble of willow, wild rose and dilapidated cottonwood trees. These hunters were on the prowl.

The beaver live right in front of the cabin, paddling by and slapping the surface with a ‘kerthump’ when scaring off my canoe. Their fresh tree-chewing is sometimes apparent of a big cottonwood tree, those softies, where an eager beaver may get halfway through a two-foot diameter trunk, only to abandon the effort. Their tell-tale tooth marks inscribing the cut like a signature. Downstream I spotted a lodge one spring, but a ‘big, big’ scraped it away.

Bobcats are fairly common, usually spotting one per season. So pretty and unique; the spots, whiskers and distinctive hooked tail immediately recognizable.

Deer are plentiful, a big rack right off my porch last winter. He pawing the snow and browsing on grass in my yard. Does and fawns don’t run off, they just stare back for fast movement, whence they boink away in high vertical leaps.

Evidence of bears is visible, their drops and prints, but I have yet to spots one from the deck. This is good, meaning the neighbors do not leave aromatic trash for these voracious omnivores. I like bears in high country, but not here right off the porch, for those guys are scary focused on satisfying their appetite.

While exploring and preparing to shoot a photo, a movement appeared in the frame. Both of us were startled that moment. A ‘first ever’ sighting of a Red Tailed Fox leaping and bounding across a riverside steep. The canine leapt across boulders and gully, shot up a ledge and was gone in four seconds. Long, long puffy auburn tail; light face markings and otherwise dark. Fast and light carnivore prowling along the riverside.

Fresh water swans formed a moving semi-circle, a ripple trailing behind them as they worked together. A previously unknown behavior, these large birds floated side-by-side, submerging their heads in unison as they paddled. Coming up for air all together, as if on cue, they reform and plunge their heads all at once again, corralling prey as a team is my guess. They performed this dance repeatedly. Remarkable.

Cottonwood snags are pocked with bird holes, their little heads poke out and twitch inquisitively. The peepers look about quickly, taking flight in an instant, returning later with a twig or treat. Their songs and peeps fill the air, a soprano alongside the Middle Fork tenor.

Raptors perch nearby, their target birds squawk in alarm, while the Red Tail circles menacingly. Dad peepers, finches and such, swoop and scream as they dive bomb toward a hawk’s head, before pulling out within inches of contact. Three, four screaming dives, the Dad peeper yelling ‘get the hell out of my neighborhood’. He may chase off a satiated hawk.

A Kit Fox lives on the slope behind the cabin. He seems to prowl on the cleared flat ground off the deck, where evidence of gophers is plentiful.