Wednesday, August 22, 2007
photo slideshow
Between Sunday's long race and yesterday's bee encounter, I definitely wasn't up to a challenging run today. Since the trails at the Vischer Ferry Nature Preserve are fairly flat, I headed over there for a short run this evening. I also found a certain amount of symmetry in riding along the southern side of the river yesterday and running along the northern side today...
Lots of bird sightings on today's run... several herons (and I heard a few squawking too) and a great egret, just like yesterday's ride. I'm also pretty sure I saw a green heron flying away at one point, and another bird that flew off chattering away at me looked a lot like a kingfisher. But by far the most interesting was a confirmation of one of yesterday's sightings. While I was at the lock, I saw a large dark-colored bird flying off and thought it looked like a cormorant... tonight I saw another one flying, which drew my attention to two of them perched in trees, and I think my original identification was correct - cormorants!
(click for a larger view)
The preserve is also a nice place to run because on a cool cloudy day like today it's fairly deserted... I saw only a handful of people the entire time I was there. There's also a variety of trails... I started out on singletrack along the old canal, then ran down a gravel road, and went from there to mowed grass paths. The stretch through the woods is probably one of the coolest parts - tall trees with most of their branches and leaves high above the ground, and a thick blanket of green plants covering the ground between them. The main trail runs along the old canal, from Clute's Drydock at one end of the preserve all the way down the the power plant at the Lock 7 dam across the river at the other end. I started at the Whipple bridge, ran part of the way towards the old drydock, then made my way out to the power plant, and finally ran along the old canal back to the bridge.
(click for larger view)
My stung thigh is swollen and itchy - typical mild allergic reaction I get to bee stings. It made running a bit uncomfortable at times, but nothing too bad. All in all, this was a decent run, under the circumstances.
JMH
