Tag: Great Blue Heron

Beyond Mud Pies

On By trashonthemonocacyIn Children, Monocacy River, Wildlife18 Comments

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Last week’s rains filled the Monocacy to its banks, which prevented exploration for a few days, but as the water receded to more average levels, we were treated to another sort of fun: mud. Lots and lots of it. The kind that sucks off your boots and ends up in your hair. While the boys modeled it into facades that seemed to lead into the riverbanks (and which reminded us of something out of Tolkien, like the Mines of Moria, but for muskrats), I discovered a veritable treasure-trove of tracks and footprints.

 

They reveal the life along the river that I rarely see; the creatures that come out when I’m not there. Honestly, evidence of the white-tailed deer is everywhere, in the form of scat that my younger dog takes too much pleasure in rolling herself in (and then pouts for days over the subsequent bath), and the squirrels are rarely too shy to show themselves, either. Raccoons, however, are more secretive (being nocturnal), and herons, although visible, prefer not to let me get too close. The Monocacy is host to other animals as well: opossums (one of which made it into my house), shrews, moles, voles, mice, chipmunks, groundhogs (whose holes are another obsession for my younger dog), weasels, minks, and otters, just to name a few mammals. We’re there, too, of course, sometimes leaving a little more than footprints

At least yesterday I found a piece of trash that I could use to collect the other pieces of trash. That’s always helpful. If you look on the bright side.

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The Great Blue Heron

On By trashonthemonocacyIn Monocacy River, Nature1 Comment

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The Great Blue Heron is among the most regular of the birds I see along the Monocacy.  Regular, but not common.  The birds are tall, elegant and brilliantly marked and feathered.   Their size still takes me by surprise, especially when I’ve startled them into flight and they  appear suddenly beside me, strikingly prehistoric looking.  In them, I can see the relationship between birds and dinosaurs.  Just look at these heron footprints I found a few days ago, and for comparison’s sake, imagine your handprints in the mud alongside them.  Those footprints are bigger.

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Unfortunately, I’ve encountered one of these fabulous birds caught in fishing line that had gotten tangled in a tree.  It was, understandably, upset and not a little intimidating.  But, fortunately for the bird (and, for me, who would’ve been plagued by guilt), a daring man decided to stop, hazard his own skin, and cut it free. Fishing line (as seen in the photo above, attached to the interior of a beer can) is another thing that I find quite regularly along the Monocacy.  During the summer, the river is a popular destination for fishermen (and women, not that I’ve had any luck, which is another story) to dip their rods in the murky water.  Often they leave behind the styrofoam cups that held their bait and the cans, bottles and wrappers from their picnic lunches. Those bits of trash are annoying, but the fishing line is dangerous.

The good news is that it’s a piece of trash I don’t have to pick up and take home with me.  The city of Frederick has set up little stations to recycle the line at most locations where fishing is a usual pastime. That includes parks along the Monocacy, including Riverside Park under the Monocacy Avenue Bridge, which is the most accessible in the city.