Peace Like A River

Being a professional naturalist has given me the opportunities to either ride in or drive many kinds of vehicles.  I've been on ATV's, agency pick-up trucks equipped with infrared and night vision scopes, airplanes, motor boats, mountain bikes, John Deere gators, and even a helicopter.  These things make work in parks/wildlife easier, depending on where work needs to be done. Sometimes, not all wildlife is best enjoyed by a fast trail vehicle or the coolest aircraft.  Sometimes, it's all about something meaningful.

Potomac River sunrise

This past spring, I noticed a stretch of forest with bald eagle nests, a heron rookery, and a cormorant rookery. These rookeries are places where flocks of birds come to nest and congregate.   It just sounded like a little slice of wildlife watching heaven to me.  I had to get out there to see the birds and to try to photograph some of them.  The forest was only accessible by boat, and the boat I was dying to take out was in my backyard straddled upon a few sawhorses, on dry land.

The boat's name is Peace Like A River, and for the past 2 years, she had only touched a body of water a few times.  I wanted to change that. 

My desire to take her on the water increased when I was flipping through a small photo album of my grandfather's, from years ago.  This album was basically the story of how that canoe (and a few others) were built by him and of the adventures my mom and uncle had in those canoes, as children.  In between the pages of these photos are blueprints and plans that were used to construct Peace Like A River.  It doesn't seem easy to build one of these things, so it goes without saying that I'm thankful for having one so accessible to me.

Author's grandfather in Peace Like A River.

She's got an incredible amount of character in her wooden body.  She rides smooth, and although some maneuvers can be wobbly at times, she'll make every ride an enjoyable one.  It's even more enjoyable when you think about her history and character.



Author as a child (middle) with family on the Potomac River.

My siblings and I, as young kids, used to really enjoy going for rides in the boat.  My father would do most of the paddling work because as a kid, my main job used to be focused on not flipping the boat or leaning outside of it.  We'd fish from the canoe mostly, and often take breaks for lunch on the islands.  As I child, this was seen as an excuse to explore, an excuse that I still haven't let go of today as an adult.


As I was thinking of a plan to take the boat out and to see the bird rookeries, I figured I'd invite my friend Jeff.  He's a professional photographer with works and ties to National Geographic.  I found it fitting, as we try to find excuses to get out in our local parks anyway.  Plus, he takes amazing photos. He agreed and my excitement to go increased immensely. We paddled on the Potomac near where the birds were nesting.  We didn't disturb them at all, and Jeff got some really good photos of cormorants and herons. The "drop zone" of bird poop was quickly determined by us, so we knew to keep a bit of a distance from the animals.  The nests were probably between 40 and 70 feet in the air, and when a bird needed to poop, they didn't think twice about sending it straight down from that height.  It was an interesting experience, and I'll never forget the commotion of nesting cormorants and herons.

Cormorant rookery (nesting site).  Photo:  Jeff Mauritzen

Peace Like A River was originally a northerner, being built in New Jersey and taken out on bodies of water in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 

She now resides in Virginia, and her most travelled body of water these days is the Potomac River, turning her into Southern Belle with northern roots.


Brian Balik (author) in Peace Like A River, searching for birds.  Photo:  Jeff Mauritzen

 

-Big thanks to Jeff Mauritzen for taking amazing photos and coming along on my local excursions.  Click to see more of his work here:  Travel and Wildlife Photography .

Cold-Weather Blues

It's been one rough winter with snow still on all of our minds here in Virginia.  Spring is here though, and fishing season has already started for me.

The Potomac River has blue catfish.  These things are monster bottom feeder that bite well in March and April.  I've never caught a big one before, so going last week was something that I was really looking forward to.

Blue catfish are a non-native species here and were stocked in Virginia in the 1970's  (source: Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries).  They can get big.  Really big.  They feast on herring, shad, bass, crawfish, and other marine species.

The section of the Potomac River where we were fishing is also prime bald eagle and osprey territory, and even they seemed excited about the fish that we were catching.  Other notable birds that were seen from the boat were wood ducks, grebes, coots, and canvasbacks.

This fishing trip kicked off my "official" start of spring.  Camera-traps, canoeing, and sunshine are now on my mind, and summer better come quick.

As for the camera-traps,  I've got them still out and taking photos.  Recent results from them have been more coyotes, red foxes mating, and the usuals (raccoons, deer, squirrels).

Deer Exodus

The melting snow in the Shenandoah Valley from last week and rain all around have made the Potomac River rise to "Flood Stage".  It's raging and is a dangerous monster when this happens.

Flowing on top of the water is a scattered garbage dump full of what I call "River Nonsense".  River nonsense is mostly made up of pieces of lumber, sticks, oil barrels, and general trash.  It's all the stuff that gets moving when the river floods its own banks.  It's not pretty, but sort of interesting in a weird way.

With the flowing water and garbage also comes another interesting sight.  Deer (the white-tailed variety of course) are swimming all over the place.  They're swimming to islands, from islands, to the mainland, and all over.  

They do this because some of them live on the islands of the Potomac River across from Great Falls, Virginia.  There are islands big and small, and when the river water rises this high, it makes for a very crammed problem for these deer. 

So what do these deer do?  The move, and to move away, they start swimming.

I saw this today and have only seen it once before during Hurricane Sandy's wrath.

I couldn't get a good picture of the deer since they were maybe around 300-400 yards away, but it was quite a sight.

Beaver Signs

It was hard to miss these signs of beavers along the Potomac River.  I counted 65 trees in total that were chewed on or damaged by beavers.

The power of their jaws and durability of their teeth amaze me.

 

You better believe that I put up a camera near these trees.



Kayak Camera: Trip 4

For the past few days, it's been ridiculously hot and humid with the heat index pushing well above the 100 degree mark.  Today's line of storms brought cooler air though this afternoon.  It was good kayaking weather after the rain.

The river didn't come up too high from the rains, so I was able to head far upstream with ease.  I paddled through some faster water and risked tipping the kayak a few times.  The water was a bit too swift for me to pull out my phone to take pictures, so I headed for some channels in between rocks and islands, rather than the rapids.

Eventually I got to some slower water and was now comfortable with taking my phone out for a photo opportunity.

The stretch of plants in front of me is water-willow.  Water-willow is a plant native to Virginia that is beneficial to the growth of islands in the river.

The plant forms rhizomes which makes a complex carpet of roots that cling to small rocks and sand.  The small rocks and sand are then better anchored and eventually, more plants will grow on them.  It takes years for a forest to grow on an island, but with a helping-hand from water-willow, it is more of a possibility.

Water flows in between the plants, but it's a project to paddle through the resistance of thousands of leaves. I drifted back a few feet, took a few strokes with the paddle, and continued upriver.

I played in more rapids and had a decent sized small-mouth bass jump over the bow of the kayak.  Like a dolphin it continued to swim right next to the boat, though this only lasted for a few seconds.  The bass darted into faster water and was never seen again. It was time for me to stop on an island for a break.

Some islands here are private, some are public, and some are public but with limited access, so it takes a little bit of research to know which ones are legal to land on.  I had one in mind and paddled right up to its sandy banks.

Kayaked to an island to relax and make a campfire.

There was a lighter and a knife in my pocket so a campfire seemed necessary (even if it was to only last about 20 minutes). Sycamore driftwood isn't the perfect campfire starting fuel, but it was all that seemed to be on this island.  It was when the fire was first lit that I realized I hadn't seen a single person on the river the whole time I was out.  This was a weird feeling, considering that I was only located a few miles outside of the D.C. area's infamous beltway traffic.

I could have camped out on that island all night, but nobody would have known where I was.  If I learned one thing from watching 127 Hours, it's to always leave or note or tell people your exact plans when ever you are in an outdoor scenario.  I didn't want to end up in a situation where nobody knew where I was, so I put the fire out and loaded the kayak again. The boat ramp where I launched from was my final destination.

I'll camp out on one of these islands one of these days, but for today, this kayak trip was phenomenal.

Kayak Camera: Trip 3

I scouted out some new camera-trap locations along the river today and found myself getting lost in this sunset while out on a kayak.

Few words are really necessary for this post.  Enjoy the pictures, folks.