additional notes on our C&O hike

[winterbadger]

I should mention we saw a hawk, several herons (a couple of them very close), and a fox when we were walking by the canal the other day. We came back in the dark (Chris having forgotten to allow for the end of DST when calculating how late it would get dark), and as we walked up to the visitor center (once, but sadly no longer, a tavern), we saw a heron standing in the canal silhouetted in the gloom by the lamplight from up the path, hunting in the water for its evening meal. Then, having been impressed by that dark, solitary figure, we paused again as a small predatory shape with a bushy tail scampered out from the edge of the woods, nosed cautiously around a bench and some bins, and ran back to the shelter of the trees. I love watching foxes run; they run so much more like cats than like dogs.