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A Walk along the tow path (photo diary) [1]

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Date: 2024-06-23  

Somewhat randomly, I took my son for a walk along the tow path (next to the C&O canal). The goal was to take bird pictures; in particular, I was hoping for a good shot of a Kingfisher (got a so-so one there a while ago). I did tell my son, though, that the only thing I was sure we would see was turtles. I only took one lens, an 800mm, so I was kind of limited for non-animal shots.

Also, it was a really hot day (95-ish). My plan had been that we would be walking in the shade, but the sun was on the wrong side of the canal, so we were almost completely exposed. Brutal.

We started at the Chain Bridge, and just walked north for close to a mile and a half. This dude was hanging out in the Potomac, and was shot from the bridge.

Double-crested cormorant

Walking a little further, this shot is not of the river, nor of the canal. It’s a body of water in between. Some of the canal was similarly covered, but most of it was more healthy-looking.

We were really there to shoot birds. For a while, all we saw were turtles and dragonflies.

A couple of turtles sunning themselves

I almost missed this one, but my son pointed it out.

Ok, this part of the water was covered, but the dragonfly doesn’t seem to mind.

But after about half an hour, that cormorant was the only bird we’d seen. Eventually, we saw these Canadian Molsons Geese.

Part of the tiny flock of Geese. I think there were eight, total. More to come on these.

Right after, we saw a couple Great Crested Flycatchers. Pretty crazy colors on them.

Not a Venus Flytrap, but still likes flies

A little further on, ran across some Wood Ducks hanging out in the shade. There were around ten, so this isn’t all of them.

The little ones, presumably with mom

And this is the dad, I guess.

I mentioned how hot it was, so we were getting tired by this point, and had decided to continue to the nearest turn we could see, and thank goodness we did. Right about at that turn, my son spotted this dude hanging out. It sat there quietly for a minute, did a very slow turn in front of us, then flew a short distance towards us. (Also, while I was shooting this one, my camera gave a warning I’d never seen before, saying that the memory card was getting too hot.)

Great Blue Heron, hanging out.

And doing a slow stretch for us

Finishing his turn

And a very short flight.

At that point, we started heading back. I actually had seen a Kingfisher, but none of the shots turned out to be very good.

On the way back, we saw those Geese again, this time all swimming together.

Just past them, we started seeing some Kingfishers (there were at least three, but I can’t say with any confidence that most of my shots weren’t the same one).

Finally a decent shot of a kingfisher

Probably the same bird as the last. Definitely the title shot, above, is this bird.

Definitely the same as the one two above.

That about covers what we found on the canal. Going back across the river, I took this shot looking north from the bridge.

Semi-random shot of the Potomac. There were quite a few kayakers.

Hope you all enjoyed the shots.

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