Escape to the Canal

It was very cold when we awoke Sunday morning.  Who would have imagined temperatures like 38° F during the middle of the month of May.  It seems like the weather has also gone mad! Thankfully, it warmed up as the morning went by.

We drove to Sycamore Landing for our walk along the canal.  It seems that the parks have been getting more crowded in recent days, as people try to find a place to go to get away from being cooped up inside the house.  The parking lots for the canal that are closer to the city have been closed because of the crowds that have emerged, crowds that do not practice safe distancing in this time of the COVID-19.  Sycamore Landing is off the beaten path, and it is also relatively close to home.  Hence this choice of destination.

Our wish for a less crowded destination was fulfilled.  We pulled into an empty parking lot shortly before 9:00am.

It had been two weeks since our previous walk on the towpath.  It felt nice to be back.  I let the tensions of everyday life slowly depart as we walked north towards Edwards Ferry.

The green has taken over the browns of winter in the woods.It was not long into the walk before we spotted a bright blue bird flying across the trail in front of us.  This was a bird that we do not normally see on the towpath.  The color stood out amidst the green of the forest. The vibrance of its color was similar to the vibrance of the color of the cardinal, a bird that is more common in these parts.One was curious as to the nature of the bird.  I guessed that this was a male bluebird during its mating season.  I was wrong!   Later that day, we had a phone call with the kids on account of Mothers’ Day.  I shared this picture with them.  Jesse was quick to research this, even while we were talking.  The bird in the picture above is called an Indigo Bunting.  I do not recall having seen one of these before.

About a mile into our walk, we came across this fallen tree blocking the trail.  It was quite massive.  It was quite tricky for the bikers to carry their bikes across.  We sneaked across between the two branches of the tree without hurting ourselves!Further along the trail, we came across some deer that were hanging out.  These two appear to be having a conversation about the approaching humans.  If you look carefully at the picture, you might also notice the cardinal (out of focus) on the trail in front of the deer.The woods along the C&O canal are infested with a plant called garlic mustard.  They are massively invasive, and show up once in two years.  We have been seeing these plants during all our walks along the canal this year.  Three or four years ago, I even took part in a cleanup effort along the towpath at a place called Carderock.  I think controlling the spread of these plants is a losing effort.Here is shot of the flowers of garlic mustard.  This was part of my experimentation with the zoom lens to see if I could capture a picture which looked like one taken with a macro lens, i.e, taken with a lens that allowed you to take a picture from very close to the subject matter.  At the time that I was taking this picture, I did not realize that there was an insect nectaring on the flowers.Further along, we came across this Great Egret that took off at our approach.  We saw it flying over the trees further along the trail.We finally came across a real Eastern Bluebird.  It kept flying ahead of us for some time.  It would land on a tree, wait for me to get closer with the camera, and then take off once again.  It think it got tired of playing games after a while.As usual, the air was filled with the sounds of the birds, occasionally mixed with those from the scurrying squirrels.  There are certain sections of the trail where the birds are more plentiful.  The woodpeckers, in general, make a very guttural sound.  The trees can vibrate quite loudly when some of the woodpeckers hammer on their trunks.  The woodpecker in the picture below is most likely a red bellied woodpecker.  It was escaping into the upper branches.  In general, these birds have a tendency to go to the other side of the branch or tree trunk when I approach with my camera.There were many flowers beside the trail as we approached Edwards Ferry.

These are buttercups.These are fleabanes.I myself did not walk all the way up to the river since I was busy changing the lens on the camera.The parking lot at Edwards Ferry was quite full.

On our way back I stopped to take pictures of these turtles sitting out in the sun.  This was the only place where we saw turtles.This green heron was fishing in the canal further along the trail.  We managed to distract it from what it was doing.The rest of the walk was completed with a renewed sense of purpose.  We picked up speed in spite of the distractions of the park.  We completed the walk in a reasonable amount of time.  There were only a couple of cars in the parking lot by the time we got back shortly after 11am.

We did some shopping on our way home.  Then it was time to recuperate and rejuvenate.  I usually try to do that by taking a good nap!