Roads End Naturalist

Exploring the natural world as we wander at the end of the road

Tag: swamp

  • Swamp Break

    Each mile on a river will take you further from home than a hundred miles on a road. ~Bob Marshall It has been a hectic spring at work so we decided to take a break last week and do something we both love to do – paddle in a swamp. We both blocked off 3 Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Swamp Sounds

    ,

    Natural, ambient sounds give us a picture over time and define place…every landscape has a rhythm to it. ~Dr. Bryan C. Pijanowski There is, indeed, a rhythm to paddling in a swamp, and the sounds help define it. Putting our canoes in at Gardner Creek a couple of weeks ago, we could hear the sounds Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Swamp’s Sentinels

    Here’s another of Melissa’s poems that she read at the recent Poetry with Wings event at the NC Botanical Garden (paired with some of my images from our trips on the Roanoke River) … Swamp’s Sentinels by Melissa Dowland In the blackwater swamp The creeks are lined With cypress-sentinels Left whole by the loggers— Because Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Roanoke Ramblings

    ,

    A river seems a magic thing. A magic, moving, living part of the very earth itself. ~Laura Gilpin I spent this past weekend in a magical place, a place I have been many times, but that still draws me back – the Roanoke River. The Roanoke is a major river that flows over 400 miles Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Paddling the Black River

    ,

    Last week, my friend, and former co-worker, Jerry Reynolds asked if I wanted to go along with he and another friend on a paddle along the Black River as he prepped for an upcoming program. I jumped at it since it has been years since I paddled the Black (I did go upriver last year Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn

  • Merchants Millpond

    ,

    I enter the swamp as a sacred place Henry David Thoreau Merchants Millpond has always been one of my favorite state parks. When I was the East District Naturalist for the State Parks system oh-so-many years ago (1981-1986), I would go up to Merchants and canoe out after dark to the family camping area after Read more…

    Written by

    Mike Dunn