Canadice Lake is part of the watershed for the City of Rochester, along with Hemlock Lake. About 35 miles south of Rochester, it was about an hour's drive for us to get there from our house (back roads all the way).
Arik picked Canadice Lake. He found it in the book I bought him for his birthday, Take Your Bike: Family Rides in the Rochester Area. (Published by Footprints Press, who also publish Take Your Bike: Family Rides in the Finger Lakes Region, a series of Take A Hike books, and books about waterfalls, paddling, wildlife, and other outdoor fun in Central/Western New York.)
The Canadice Lake Trail was a great ride. It's about 4 miles one-way, plus an optional loop at the end. So at the end of the day, we'd ridden about 9 miles. The ride was nice and flat, but the terrain of the path was a little unpredictable—90% of it was a pair of nice dirt tire ruts, but places where culverts fed into the lake under the trail were covered by large fist-size stones that have a tendency to slip sideways out from under bike tires. But as long as you were watching where you were going, it was all right.
We were down there for quite a while longer than it takes to ride 9 miles though. We some some amazing birds! We took 2 pairs of binoculars with us and at one point we parked the bikes and headed down the bank to sit at the edge of the water. From that vantage point, we saw a couple of Great Blue Herons, a Great Egret, and some Kingfishers in the act of fishing (which is so cool—they hover like a hummingbird, then dive straight down toward the water).
On our return trip on the path, it was starting to get close to sunset, and that's when the raptors came out. A couple of birds were playing coy with us—they'd show themselves just long enough to tease us, but not long enough for us to be able to accurately identify them, then they'd fly another 25 yards down the trail and start the game over again. We think we saw one Perigrine Falcon and at least one unidentifiable hawk.
All in all, it was an awesome trip. We look forward to heading down there again and checking out the trails at its sister lake, Hemlock.
And now, pictures!
About at the middle of the trail
The southern end of the trail
The trail running down the west side of the lake
The Lake
From the western bank
From the southern tip
(And me, looking at the Take Your Bike book map
and rocking out my bike gear,
including my new Camelbak from Arik's Mom! Yay!
The Wildlife
A birdhouse at the southern tip of the lake
A Great Egret (which I spotted first for once!)
And totally awesome. Awesomest of all. The Great Blue Heron.
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1 comments:
Awesome pictures.
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