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As I've said many times, Trish and I love to spend time on the water in a human-powered watercraft called a canoe.
By the way, did you know canoes have been around for at least 10,000 years? A dugout canoe discovered in Nigeria was carbon-dated to about 10,500 years ago, and another dugout canoe found in the Netherlands was carbon-dated to approximately 10,200 years ago.
Since those ancient times, canoes have drastically changed civilization, being crucial for human expansion to remote islands, such as throughout the Malay archipelago to Australia and New Zealand. Canoes became essential tools for trade in North America and other continents. And now they are still used worldwide for recreation and even Olympic events.
In arctic areas, innovative people like the Inuit and Aleut modified the basic canoe design by covering them in skins for hunting and fishing in freezing water. This is how kayaks evolved from canoes.
Anyway, Trish and I are not hardy enough to brave freezing waters, so our 2026 paddling season is quickly coming to an end. As October comes to a close, we watch carefully for any days that have warm temps and low wind. We managed to get out on two perfect days in the last week, paddling over eight miles one day and six the next, exploring coves and shorelines. It was glorious. (PHOTOS 1-2)
In one area we found numerous stick nests built in dead trees over the water (see below). At the time, we speculated about what birds may have made these nests but failed to come up with a likely answer. They are far too small to be bald eagle, osprey, or great blue heron nests (all are common here). (PHOTO 3)
After we got home, I went down a research rabbit hole to figure this out, and I discovered that these are nests of the double-crested cormorant.
Cormorants are common at the lake, but they do not typically breed in Missouri, which explains why we have not seen nests like this before. The weather this year has been so weird that a group of cormorants must have decided to not even bother to keep flying north and just breed here instead.
PHOTO 4 shows double-crested cormorants on their nests.
Photo Credits:
- Canoeing photos, including older cormorant nests - Stan C. Smith
- Double-crested cormorants in their stick nests - DepositPhotos