An amazing trip! Walking the marsh trail from Riverview towards the Peticodiac Tidal Bore and Moncton is super surreal and amazing! The open space and big sky and green grasses like waves with birds above us and around us…a surreal moment…all so close to home!
We like to go down to Riverfront Park in Riverview and watch the tidal bore as it crawls up and down the Peticodiac River. From the boardwalk in the park we can see Moncton across the river and the chocolatey brown river ebbing and flowing…it’s fun to watch the ducks surfing on the big push! We’re lucky to have so many great trails in the area and we usually go for short walks between the Atlantic Super Store and Gunningsville bridge, past the Gazebo and playground…it’s a nice walk maybe 2 kms.
The other day we decided to continue on under the Gunningsville bridge towards Point Park on the trail just to see what was there…it was awesome! There is a trail that goes past some nice marshes that continues towards Point Park and then just past the creeping vines of the water treatment plant the trail turns out towards Moncton and continues across a causeway through a nice marshy wetland with what is almost like a large shallow lake. It is full of ducks and little shorebirds and dozens of swifts flirting overhead.
The ducks with their ducklings have their nests in the grasses and the swifts bounce over our heads in the wind. Is it true that the swifts have no legs??
At the end of the trail you come to the Peticodiac and are right across from Moncton and the hustle and bustle but you are standing in fields of deep long grasses that move like green waves in the wind. It’s our second time we’ve gone on this trail and won’t be the last…it’s so cool to be in an urban area but being able to have a vasy expanse of lush marshland all around you!
On our way back we saw what looked like a duck nest built out of a tire! We saw a tire floating in the marsh but at first it was hard to tell what it was because it was covered in grass and looked like it had been used as a nest. Indeed it was a tire with what looked like sod on it or could it be grass growing on the tire naturally??
As we walked we saw a mother duck in the tall wet grasses and noticed a nice, perfectly round nest or what looked like a duck nest. This was the Supreme Winnebago of Duck Nests…perfectly round, bright green thick grass, floating just perfectly, a nice deep pocket for a mama duck and her eggs to keep cozy warm! But we looked closer and saw it was a tire with grass or sod on it!! Has anyone heard of a waterfowl nest being built from a tire? We saw it and now believe it! A Wild duck nest made from a tire!
Sure looks like someone might have made it…pretty good idea to make a bird nest out a tire…not exactly like one of those floating islands but it looked nicer than a whitewall in the mud!