{"id":22596,"date":"2023-03-18T15:36:50","date_gmt":"2023-03-18T20:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/?p=22596"},"modified":"2023-04-03T12:04:34","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T17:04:34","slug":"co-canal-flowers-and-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/?p=22596","title":{"rendered":"C&#038;O Canal &#8211; Flowers and Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_22599\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006865.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-22599\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006865-350x233.jpg\" alt=\"Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica)\" width=\"350\" height=\"233\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22599\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006865-350x233.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006865-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006865-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006865-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006865.jpg 1800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-22599\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Virginia Bluebells (<em>Mertensia virginica<\/em>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Cathy and I went out to Poolesville to drop off a publication that we&#8217;ve had since I was in college. I had forgotten that the person we were taking it to was a classmate of mine since elementary school. From there we went to the C&#038;O Canal at Riley&#8217;s Lock, where Seneca Creek empties into the Potomac River. We parked on the other side of the creek from the lock and lock house, near the old, ruined stone mill. It&#8217;s a shame it&#8217;s defaced by so much graffiti, but I suppose that&#8217;s something that&#8217;s just going to happen. When we got onto the towpath we walked west for a little over a mile. We didn&#8217;t expect to see much but I brought my long lens, just in case. Towards the end of the walk we spotted that particular green of the leaves of Virginia bluebells (<em>Mertensia virginica<\/em>). It&#8217;s a little early for them to be in full bloom but they were starting to open and I got a few nice photos. We love bluebells.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_22598\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006876.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-22598\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006876-350x233.jpg\" alt=\"Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus)\" width=\"350\" height=\"233\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22598\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006876-350x233.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006876-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006876-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006876-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/img_20230318_006876.jpg 1800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-22598\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hooded Merganser (<em>Lophodytes cucullatus<\/em>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In addition to the bluebells, there were spring beauties (<em>Claytonia virginica<\/em>), cutleaved toothwort (<em>Cardamine concatenata<\/em>), and Dutchman&#8217;s breeches (<em>Dicentra cucullaria<\/em>). There were <em>Trillium<\/em> leaves but they were not in bloom yet. In the turning basin there was a great blue heron (<em>Ardea herodias<\/em>) on the far shore and two pairs of hooded mergansers (<em>Lophodytes cucullatus<\/em>). These are lovely birds and I never get tired of seeing them. The females are a bit less noticeable but are also pretty birds. The turtles were also out in numbers, at least in a few spots. What a beautiful day for a walk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cathy and I went out to Poolesville to drop off a publication that we&#8217;ve had since I was in college. I had forgotten that the person we were taking it to was a classmate of mine since elementary school. From there we went to the C&#038;O Canal at Riley&#8217;s Lock, where Seneca Creek empties into &hellip; <a class=\"read-excerpt\" href=\"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/?p=22596\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&raquo;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2338,298,1055,3319,3320,3321,3318,2336,2335,936,2791],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22596"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22605,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22596\/revisions\/22605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}