# 25-21 Autumn in the Marshes: The View from a Paddle Board

The creek threaded its way into a maze of smooth cordgrass extending as far as I could see, its summer-bright greenness now fading to yellow. I inhaled deeply of the marshy smelling air, its scent a combination of sulfur, iron, and decaying vegetation. A blue crab came swimming by, the paddles on its rear legs flicking back and forth at the surface, as if waving goodbye for the season. These marshes provide homes for mating birds, mammals, fish, and invertebrates, nurseries for their young, and food pantries for the juveniles. We still have so much to learn about them, and from them. And so little time left to do it.