The Great Dismal Swamp

Its a big green rectangle on the map straddling the state lines of eastern North Carolina and southern Virginia. With a name like 'the Great dismal Swamp', how could anyone resist. I couldn't. So I turned my car southward on the only road giving access to the swamp with visions of deep, darkly-wooded black-water mires full of huge Cyprus trees hung with Spanish moss with a teeming population of  alligators, snakes and exotic birds. No such luck.

I took a narrow dirt road into the swamp headed to Lake Drummond, very blue and normal looking. So were the woods normal-looking having a lot of the same trees I'm so familiar with from home. I drove on feeling a little disappointed until a saw a big black blob ahead of me that could have easily been a huge bear lounging in the road. As I neared, the form broke up into four of the biggest black birds I've ever seen. One had its wings outstretched in a pose that was sure to entice the lady birds and a span of about six feet. Before I could ready my camera, they broke up and lifted themselves into the nearby trees. Bummer.

The road turned to the lake running in a straight line through marshy grassland with a canal  alongside it. The canal had lots of downed and blackened stumps and logs along it, some with incredibly green moss and weeds growing on them while others stretched across the water to serve a sunning spots for turtles. Lots of turtles. I learned right away that one false move from me and they slid quickly into the water. I sure am glad I have a good zoom lens.

On the way out I was led by a great blue heron that flew from place to place just ahead of my car, barely out of range of my camera. I tried for that shot several times and never got a good one.

There really was Cyprus and those are the trees with the heavy, bulbous bases. I'm not sure but think those are also the ones with above ground roots as though they were getting ready to tiptoe right out of that nasty black water. I was surprised to discover that the water was indeed black, not murky, but shiny mirror-black that really made the best of the colors of the sky above. In some places there was some sort of greenish growth, a thin coat with some neat patterns that floated on top and I noticed that where that film was the turtles usually weren't.

I wasn't thrilled with the Great Dismal Swamp but I did find it to be fascinating in a subtle way. What did I like most about it? The bird calls, lots of them, beautiful, melodic, some very unusual.

Trees on tiptoe.