Our last stop of the day is Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. This is a site that we regret not being able to explore more thoroughly but we did what we could with limited time. We stop first at the visitor center where we are greeted with a Purple Martin condo, it is quite fun to see them using the manmade structure so readily. In fact the Barn Swallows seem to be jealous as they sit on the nearby wires and watch the martins.
We decide on a short loop trail behind the visitor center and soon find our first warbler, a Blackburnian Warbler resting in a tree. But otherwise we can see only some Yellow Warblers, not a lot of warblers so late in the evening.
However we enjoy crossing the creek via a sturdy bridge, it looks both wild and intentionally made to look wild, we are not sure which is actual and which isn’t. Still it looks nice. Nearby a group of two women stop us to tell us that supposedly there is an Eastern Screech Owl in a hollow nearby but try as we might no one is able to see it so we move on.
We then walk to a pond in front of the visitor center meeting, again, a watersnake but seeing only a few Spotted Sandpipers.
As such it is now time to move to another parking area inside the refuge from where we plan to walk to a virtual geocache. We are happy that there are a few cars still in the parking lot as it is supposed to close at sunset and we don’t have much time left.
So we hurry along the canal to reach the cache site but then are distracted as huge fish start jumping out the canal and seem to fight one another. It is impressive and a bit scary, they seem to be large and make some serious noises when falling in the water.
On the way we find one more Purple Martin condo, here we stay a while to observe them and notice some already have chicks. Seems they are quite fast in nesting and raising their chicks.
On the marshlands we see Trumpeter Swans while in front of us a family of Canada Geese is determined to meet with us and maybe scare us off.
Luckily we have to turn before we meet and soon reach our goal, the observation platform. which as a bonus is situated higher up, seemingly out of the reach of the many mosquitoes and gnats that plague us.
And then it is time to return to the car and we make it just in time before sunset and then it is a relatively short drive back to the AirBnB where we arrive quite tired. So after a fast dinner we are in bed as tomorrow we have to wake up much earlier as the meeting time is 6:30AM vs 8AM till now.
