This month was full of rainy days so I only saw it fitting to include some of the effects that I captured while it wasn’t coming down outside. I went back to the same greenbelt area as last month near Scottish Woods, and visited not only those old spots along the trail but some new ones as well.
While exploring some paths along the water one week, I noticed a huge increase in the flow of the creek as well as an increase in the amount of floating debris and miscellaneous trash. I captured a few pictures of the newly renewed waterways within different parts of the creek, as well as a video of the main waterfall picturing the biggest flow I’ve seen there since exploring ages ago as a kid.
These first two photos are a couple of those spots that I found hiking down from the main trail and following the path that runs parallel to the waterway. I especially liked these two photos because just a couple weeks before the same spots looked glaringly different. This month they were full of life and flowing much faster than I remembered from before. I also noticed quite a bit more driftwood and larger pieces of trash floating within the creek itself as well as along the banks.
One quote from Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac that I could relate to this month’s adventures could be found on pages 24-25. He writes, ” The spring flood brings us more than high adventure; it brings likewise an unpredictable miscellany of floatable objects pilfered from upriver farms.” While it isn’t spring just yet, we have been receiving much more rain than weeks past which may feel like a flood to this relatively small greenbelt community. With this added water the rain brings debris (both natural and unnatural) to deposit it downstream.
This third photo was by far the most beautiful spot I visited this month, with it’s shallow but fast flowing water filled with a maze of moss covered rocks and shriveled wintry plant life. This spot served as a home for some massive spiders among the leafless branches submerged in the water, as well as some minnows and other swimming bodies that I spotted darting between the same mossy rocks.
This final media snippet is of the main waterfall I mentioned above. To get this photo I climbed down right next to the opening of the falls to get a good look at the magnitude that the recent rain had on this part of the creek. I’ve included a video I took rather than just throwing in one of the photos so the readers could take in the sound and sheer flow I witnessed of the falls. If you’ve ever gone down to this part of the greenbelt you know that unmistakable sound when you’re nearing the famed waterfall spot–especially this month when you could hear it’s loud and even more thunderous force.
Those were some of my favorites during these rainy weeks!
Until next month!