Canada's Rideau Canal

Back in the early 1800's, Canada was fighting with those terrible southerners, AKA Americans. They were concerned that, in a later fight, that enemy would cut off their supply route.  So they decided to connect several lakes into a navigable passage way,  from Kingston, on the St. Lawrence River, up to the Ottawa River at Ottawa, some 125 miles north. This required 45 locks. 

Oh, the places I could go in my kayak!

Now the canal is a National Historic Site of Canada and a UNESCO World Heritage Site that has been in operation since 1832, making it the longest continuously operated canal in North America. Today, it is mostly used by pleasure boats, canoes and kayaks in summer, and it is the world's longest skating rink in the winter, weather permitting. You can take a tour boat on part of it.  Always it has beautiful bike/hike baths along it so it can be enjoyed in many ways.  I would love to paddle it in its entirety. Here is information  on paddling it, if you would also like to dream about a trip on it. 

First view of the Rideau from a bridge over the Ottawa River

I fell in love with the Rideau Canal the first time I saw it in the beautiful evening light.  I took lots of pictures of it on different days and at different locations. I toyed with the idea of a day paddle on it, but decided not to antagonize my slowly healing ribs.  But I did enjoy walking along several parts of it. 

I also toured the museum of the Rideau Canal.   The canal was  designed and the building of it supervised by Lieutenant-Colonel John By and is a wonder of engineering.  The saddest part was that By was recalled in disgrace because of big overruns, even though he said it would cost much more than first predicted. While he was exonerated, he never received the credit he deserved in his lifetime.  Today his statue stands across from the Rideau Canal Museum where he can look down on his work.

Lieutenant-Colonel John By

Lieutenant-Colonel John By's view of the Rideau Museum, an 18th century mill

Tools used to build the canal

I was so excited to come out of the museum and see two boats coming up the locks from the Ottawa River to the Rideau Canal. The next pictures show that process. 

The water level  in two locks has to equalize before the gate opens

The gates are opened my hand cranking.

Coming up. 

This boat has been floated up until it is at the level of the next lock.

Ready to move

View of the Rideau on one of my walks

Same view in winter - from Ottawa Tourist Bureau

Rideau Locks at night

Saying Goodbye at South Llano River State Park

I need to be at Bison Range National Wildlife Refuge by Thursday, May 11, so I can have a day of training before helping with the Migration Day on Saturday.

But I HAD to spend four days with friends at South Llano River State Park, one of our best Texas birding sites and on one of my favorite rivers before I left.  This is another traditional trip that happens the first weekend in May to take advantage of the peak of migration and the river in new spring garb.

Bill and Bob getting organized Friday morning

I've had a wonderful time with old friends and friends I've recently met, including Bill and Carol, who I spent a week with at Yellowstone National Park last fall.  She was doing here last hurrah also and left for Rocky Mountain National Wildlife Refuge where she volunteers each summer.

Bell's Vireo sing their chattering song only around the campground area

I managed to bird all four of  the blinds and several of the areas that hold large concentrations of birds, hike seven miles with Bill, enjoy a couple of evening fires and a group supper and finally, get in a short paddle. Natalie had two dogs and we couldn't take them on the river, so I babysat them Saturday while she paddled and she babysat them Sunday, while I paddled.

A female painted bunting getting her morning drink

A black throated sparrow

Even though I've been coming to this park at least once a year for many years, I still had never hiked up to the overlook.  And I hadn't hike the trails in several years.  So it was fun to discover new parts of the park. Bill and I hikeed the perimeter of the park for about seven miles.  But, since we had also wandered around for about two hours birding, and I had visited back and forth, and done lots of miscellaneous walking, I managed to walk over twelve miles on Friday, according to my step meter. And, on the hike,  we saw a porcupine and the biggest armadillo we'd ever seen, both firsts for me at this park.

An old porcupine 

A view of the old  wildlife management area, now park where most of the trails are

A mimosa species in bloom

Big armadillo

Baby sitting dogs - It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it 

Sunday I got up at 5:00 A.M. so I could get all my packing done before daylight. I almost made it.  The last two stars blinked out as I was stuffing my tent into it's bag. I grabbed a quick breakfast of leftover tabbouleh from our group meal, threw my paddling stuff in Bob's car since Bill decided to not stress his ailing shoulder any more, and told Bob and Natalie I would meet them at the put-in which was the low water bridge in the park. I gathered up my tea, camera, and binoculars and set off.

There are hundreds of black-chinned hummingbirds in the park

There were still a few lark sparrows coming to the feeders

After a few minutes of solo birding, I  met up with several other friends also birding.  The birds were especially hot and we were finding lots of new species. We had orchard orioles, ladderback woodpeckers, blue grosbeaks, chipping sparrows, wood peewee, red-eyed vireo, yellow-billed cuckoo, a vermilion flycatcher, and other birds, including the ever present pine siskins and painted buntings. I had to tear myself away and rush the last half mile to get to the put-in in time.

We had lots of painted buntings around all the bird blinds

We had a beautiful short paddle.  More on that next blog. By the time we finally tore ourselves away from the last of the group, it was 2;00.  Then we had a seven hour drive back to Seabrook an , after several minutes of transferring my stuff, I had another half hour drive to Houston.  After getting my dirty clothes washing, I had to write this blog.

Now it's Monday and I am just getting all the pictures in this blog and will leave for Montana in a few hours.  I'll not blog again until sometime next week.  But I'll get you pictures of  our paddle then and will have lots to tell you about my 2000 mile trip, provided I survive doing it in four days, and the new refuge.

I'll be in Texas until sometime tomorrow when I cross the line into Oklahoma   A few minutes after that, I'll be in Colorado. I hope to get to explore a little of LBJ Grasslands this evening, provided I can get moving.

Sheldon Lake Rookery Revisited

My friend, Tracy, invited me to spend the night and then go on the paddle she was leading for the Bayou City Outdoors Group at Sheldon Lake. I had already promised to take care of the animals so I had to get an invite for Zootie, Natalie's dog,  as well.

Passion flowers were blooming around the lake

Zootie and I made are slow way up from Galveston through heavy traffic and stopped at REI for a new sleeping pad and to exchange a pair of pants. Then Zootie needed to go to the pet store and pick out a chew toy since I forgot to bring any.  We got to Tracy's house in time to make the salad which included my house present - a couple of quarts of tomatoes. (We are overrun with them and pick a couple of quarts every other day.)  Carol, the new friend I met on the Yellowstone trip last fall, was also there with a friend of hers. It was a lovely supper and I got another birthday cake with ice cream.

We got to the Sheldon Lake State Park boat launch about 9:00 A.M. I wandered around on the land for a while and then went ahead and paddled ahead to look for nesting birds. There are many less then in past years.  I think the hurricanes have destroyed some of the trees, but the drought may have been also have been hard on the wading birds. There were probably only scores to low hundreds of white ibis where there used to be thousands.

Nesting white ibis

Feeding white ibis

Black-crowned night herons have babies so have to fish all day long.

Snowy in breeding plumage

 The most numerous birds were cattle egrets but I think their numbers were also down.  I think there were under 500 birds there, where I would expect a few thousand.  I saw only a few great egrets and non on nests. There were only a few snowy egrets on the nest as well as few little blue herons.  But there were about the same low numbers of black-crowned night herons as usual and, for the first time I can remember, I saw several yellow-crowned night herons. Tri-colored herons were almost entirely absent - I saw only two of them.  Roseate spoonbills were present in about the same numbers. Anhingas were present but I didn't see any of their nests. Some nests may be in areas we can no longer reach due to the spread of several invasives - alligator weed, giant salvinea,  and water hyacinth. 

Yellow-crowned night heron

A cattle egret

Roseate spoonbill, little blue heron and tri-colored heron

Little blue heron foraging

  I mostly let the south wind carry me past the nesting sites and tried to take pictures in the every changing light. We had cloudy to partly cloudy skies with some times mostly sunny, throughout the morning. I was almost out of open water by the time the rest of the group caught up with me.

Some of the paddlers

My first adventure of the day happened after I followed  Dutch into a cul-de-sac of open water He busted out but I couldn't even see where he had done it and stared fighting my own way out over a terrible mix of alligator weed, giant salvinea, and water hayacinth, any of which are capable of stopping boats by themselves. A passing fisherman, who had earlier gotten trapped in the same kind of place came over and threw me a rope.  I tied it off on the boat and then used both halves of my double blade to pole.  Between us, I made it across the last thirty feet.

Roseate spoonbill in glorious breeding plumage

The only place where red, pink, orange, and yellow look good together

These egg masses are probably those of the channeled applesnail, a relatively new invasive species

As we paddled in to the boat launch,  the sky darkened but we didn't get rained on, either there or while eating lunch at the land part of the park. We also had time to visit the tower and then get back to our cars and start home, before the heavens opened. We drove most of the way back to Tracy's house where I'd left Zootie in moderate to heavy rains. Just after we got home, the floodgates of heaven opened and we had a long deluge.  It finally tapered off 1I was able to take Zootie out for a short walk and pack up the car.

Looking down on some of our group on the ramp to the tower

Then the BIG adventure began. I attempted to go along Beltway 8 and cut across to Highway 59 and ran into flooding. The longer I drove, the worse it got until water was flooding over the medians. I got scared enough to sit the storm out for about thirty minutes at a gas station - this after I found the road I turned on was a dead-end one - until the road looked to be improving. But a few blocks further east, the police had the road closed and hundreds of cars were stopped.  I managed to turn off on a through road and then started working my way east.  I found a few more flooded areas, but none over about six inches and managed to make my way to the 610 loop.  But the streets off of 610 were flooded and traffic had backed up along 610 in many places. So the going was very slow.  It was two hours before I reached I-45 south. Then the heaven's opened again, and while we weren't flooding, visibility was so bad, we were driving 45  -50 mph where most people drive between 65 and 70. So  it took another nervous hours to reach Galveston. The rain stopped just before I reached the causeway and didn't have to fight the rain to unload the car. Then it started back up and continued most of the evening, interspersed with thunderstorms.

Water lilies glowed like lanterns in the dim light

On a personal note, I'm packing for my last outing in Texas.  I'm going to an annual visit to South Llano River State Park where we enjoy the peak of spring migration, the incoming breeding birds, including the golden-cheeked warbler.  We'll also enjoy a few paddles on the beautiful South Llano River.

I'm also cleaning out my car and all reviewing all my stuff to see what I can get rid of so I may actually be able to take it all with me to Montana. I'm leaving here May 6. Between doctor appointments, getting my food and camping gear ready, getting travel food organized, getting two more new tires, and getting my car cleaned and packed, I'm going to be run off my feet.

So I'll be blogging sporadically until I get settled into Bison Range NWR.

Visit to Sheldon Lake State Park in Houston, Texas

I've had company for the last several days and have been too busy to get a post out.  But I managed to edit a batch of pictures from our trip to Sheldon Lake to visit the rookeries and enjoy whatever birds were around.

Two or my Corpus Christi paddling buddies are visiting, and  I invited another old paddling buddy who has returned to God's country from that wasteland known as New York. I invited my new friend, Bill, and Natalie was taking the last of her annual leave before officially retiring so was able to join us.

Bob enjoying the birds

We started out with a paddle on the lake where we found great egrets, black-crowned night herons, and roseate spoonbills building nests. We even saw a very early cattle egret in breeding plumage and a great horned owl sitting on a nest, only about eight feet above the ground. And the anhingas were gathering, in preparation for nesting.  We must of seen at least forty of them. A bald eagle was lingering as were a few gadwell.

A lingering bald eagle

Wynnie's picture of  us enjoying the birds

Can you find the black bellied whistling ducks?

Great horned owl on nest

 The weather was cloudy in the morning but got sunnier as the day progressed. I was in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. But we were getting lots of wind when we started. We circled around the lake and then decided we needed to head back, since we expected the home stretch to take a lot longer. But, as we started back, the wind died, so we had a shorter paddle back than anticipated.

One of a few smallish alligators we saw

 Bob, from New York, is traveling in an ancient RV and is trying various techniques to get his kayak to the top of it. His first idea was to put it up from the back but he has to lift the entire weight of the kayak.  It was very entertaining to make bets on whether he could actually get his kayak back up - each time hangs in the balance.  Just a little uphill or a little more wind coming over his bow could change a lift into a broken head. But he got his boat back up without any excitement. Now we have to invite him back to paddle so we can see his next invention.

Bob putting his boat on his RV  - and the rest of us take pictures

Made it!

 After loading our boats, we went around the corner to the headquarters of the park and found a picnic table in the shade for lunch.  I made Mississippi Cavier, a black-eyed pea salad,  for all with fruit for desert. Then we spent some time visiting the new tower which is eighty feet high and lets on see most of Sheldon Lake plus great views of the ship channel, industry, and the park.

Winnie was taking this picture while I was talking instead of filling her pita pocket

Enjoying the view from eighty feet up

The whole lake can be seen in one view from the tower

We finished up by hiking the short trails through the old ponds - this used to be a fish hatchery and two ponds are stocked with fish for kids to catch. By the time we arrived home, it was supper time.

Winnie enjoying a walk in the piney woods

View of the new tower from a trail

First water lillies of the season

Willow blooms

Bill's still smiling at the end of the day

News flash!  I've finally gotten a position in northwestern Montana.  It's at the Bison Range National Wildlife Refuge. I haven't figured out exactly when I'll be there but it will be my mid May and will probably go until mid August. And I don't think I'll have to deliver any bison. But I will get to work with the Montana Conservation Corp. Plus, I'm sure, lots of other fun stuff.