NOVEMBER 6, 2020 Something about having a hobby that is dependent on the tides – stand-up paddleboarding – feels ancient, gives me a connection to my most basic existence. I depend on an online chart rather than observing the moon or the water itself, but still, having to put in within two hours of high tide is a healthy discipline.
The tide is neutral, paying equal disregard to my schedule, rush hour in Washington, DC, and how much light there is for a person to go paddling. The tide doesn’t care when I’d like to eat lunch or whether an otherwise perfect day is just too windy. Dependence on the tide encourages me to dissociate from human activity for a few hours and just float.
On Friday, November 6, 2020, as the world was watching the results of the U. S. presidential election trickle in, I floated. For an hour, I had the beautiful, calm Anacostia River completely to myself before meeting a few kayakers. It was a perfect paddling day, sunny and 71 degrees F, with the gentlest breeze caressing my face as I pushed off the dock. That meant that on the way back in, the breeze was behind me, and I just sailed.
I saw birds, yes: a gregarious flock of 300 or so crows, a kingfisher who had just caught his dinner, and a Wilson’s snipe in the marsh. A bald eagle who didn’t give a screech about the election results, despite its status as National Bird.
I love an autumn paddle on the Anacostia; the colorful leaves are falling into the clear water, and everything seems calm. It’s not a quiet place, though. This little wilderness is wedged between several major traffic arteries including Rte. 50 and the MARC rail tracks, and there’s a very loud industrial site nearby. I have no idea what it does – my guess is recycling or making cement. The recent completion of the multi-use trail means that cyclists are dinging their bells and talking about work as they whisk past. But today I found a few pockets of at least relative silence, quiet enough to hear some special autumn sounds.
There were fall peepers! I don’t know what makes the little early spring frogs sing again in the fall, but a few of them piped up with their cheerful ascending peep. Carolina wrens were singing, as always, and white-throated sparrows, one of a handful of songbirds that visit this area in the winter but don’t stay for the summer, were whistling everywhere. But my favorite thing is subsong.
Only in the late summer and fall, and only if you’re listening intently, will you hear young birds practicing for what their adult songs will be in the spring. Several species do it, and on this day I heard song sparrows, a mockingbird, robins, and a cardinal. (The cardinal is a notable exception to the rule that the males do the singing; the female cardinal pipes up with as much gusto as her partner.) Usually at about a half or a quarter of their normal volume, the young birds warble and meander, seemingly without a breath, through incredibly complex versions of their typical songs, trying to find the songs that will define them. Birds sing to attract mates and to set the boundaries of their territories, and they want their songs to be unique. You can easily hear this if you have song sparrows in your neighborhood.
On the way back in, with the breeze at my back, I haven’t even once been tempted to check a screen for election updates. I even manage to forget about the pandemic, and I’m only jarred back into that reality when I see a cyclist wearing a mask.
I’m proud of the DC government’s commitment to cleaning up and restoring the river. There’s still a long way to go, but our five-cent bag tax has been in effect for over a decade now and has raised over $19 million for cleanup, restoration, and education. You can read about it at https://doee.dc.gov/service/skip-bag-save-river.
I love what this river does for me.
