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On Friday, my friend [livejournal.com profile] squashed talked in her LJ about walking with her son and seeing a blue heron. I replied that I hadn't seen any near Ottawa, but remembered seeing them around Georgian Bay in Northern Ontario.

I saw a heron in Ottawa today.

Because I hadn't walked yesterday, I took a somewhat longer walk than usual - because of that and also because it was a beautiful, clear, sunny morning just made for walking. I headed south along the canal and down Bank St. to the Rideau River, then west along the south side of the river. Somewhere in Vincent Massey Park I saw him, standing in an island of reeds in the middle of the river. He was so still he might have been a statue of a bird. I watched him for a while, and just as I was about to move on - after all, I was supposed to be exercising, not staring - he stretched a wing, and shook his head, and dipped his beak delicately into the water among the reeds.

What a beautiful creature.

The beauty of the day lured me onwards through Vincent Massey Park to Hog's Back Park, which I've always thought one of the most striking spots in Ottawa. Mostly the Rideau River is wide and placid, but at Hog's Back there's a rocky gorge where the water, this time of year, comes through in torrents, creating two waterfalls (sometimes more) and a series of rapids. There's a lock just to the west of that, and to the south, a dam, beyond which is the wide area of Mooney's Bay.

It was so lovely I walked onward to Mooney's Bay, and discovered that Mooney's Bay park has a series of little curved bridges like in the Arboretum or in Chinese paintings. Unlike those at the Arboretum, though, they don't go over water and they don't lead anywhere. It turned out to be a 'fitness park', with instructions about how to go over these things on skis, or, presumably, running. I could't help thinking of hamsters, having bridges that go from nowhere to nowhere, with nothing under them. But they were pretty, and who am I to laugh? I was walking on an elliptical trainer on Friday, going nowhere fast.

I saw a woman with a bicycle whose T-shirt said: NUNAVUT in large print, and above that, "Amakatak Lake". Amakatak? Is that a joke? Did the McDonald's people sell that shirt, or is Amakatak really the ancient name of a northern lake in Nunuvut?

My two-hour walk lasted two and a half hours, and I have people coming over for brunch.

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