The Active Locks

August 30, 2025 — Day 10

Rivers Crossing Campground, Savannah NY

Paul walked from the RV down to the Seneca River Barge Canal, aka Erie Canal, remember it has 3 iterations, the Original Erie, the Enlarged Erie, and the current configuration known as the Barge Canal. Paul wanted to see what birds were there. There were about a score of Ring Bill Gulls, a Great Blue Heron and a Great Egret actively feeding. Paul got some great shots and thought he had one of the egret with a medium size fish it its beak but the camera malfunctioned and the image wasn’t captured. (susan here: an alternative explanation is that Paul malfunctioned, but he’s more comfortable with blaming the equipment.)

Yesterday we had spoken with a birder on the Wildlife Loop. He asked if we had seen the Little Blue Heron. We said we had but then we got to thinking, Little Blue Heron? Was he referring to a juvenile or a species? Turns out there is a species called Little Blue Heron. Confusingly when it’s a juvenile it’s almost identical to Great Egret but it’s smaller with a half black bill where the Egret has a full yellow one. We thought they were all Egrets so of course we had to go back to May’s Point to look for it because it’s pretty rare to see one here.

We spent about half an hour there, looking at the birds, taking photographs, but didn’t spot the LBH. But we did see some Sandhill Cranes, both on the ground and in the air.

And an actively hunting Great Egret, note the tiny morsel that he just tossed in the air. Down the hatch!

We also got to meet an unusual group, the obnoxious young birders. Birders are, for the most part, people of a certain age. This group of half a dozen, mostly men, were all in the late 20s. They were here to scope out the flats for the upcoming Montezuma Muck, which is a 24 hour birding contest. One even had his Cornell jacket on. For non birders, Cornell University is the center of the universe when it comes to ornithology and it’s less than an hour away. They kept of a constant chatter of braggadocio. It was pretty clear that the men in the group were very impressed with themselves. Susan tried to engage them but they were pretty dismissive, such a shame. (susan here: we find birders are an amiable lot, generally up for chatting and exchanging info especially about that location. Not this group. One-upmanship ruled the day.)

We were hungry by this time and found a good lunch place in Seneca Falls called Parker on the Falls. Paul finally got to have the Buffalo NY signature sandwich, Beef on Weck, which is just a hot roast beef sandwich on a kümmelweck roll with a ramekin of au jus. A kümmelweck roll is a regular kaiser roll topped with salt and caraway seeds. It was pretty good, especially with a tiny bit of the very hot horseradish on it!

After lunch we stopped in at the It’s a Wonderful Life Museum.

We could have stopped here and seen all the original items from the movie. Here are those two pairs of earrings.

We both thought that the Star Trek museum in Riverside, Iowa was much better than this one. Mostly this museum was full of dusty photos and a few autographs. We’re glad to have seen it but would probably set expectations for anyone that wanted to visit to not expect much.

We then headed over the the CS 2/3 pair of locks, which raises and lower boats almost 50 feet! When we got there the upper lock was almost full, lower lock had 1 boat in it. We watched as the lower lock got to the height of the river. These locks hold 1,200,000 gallons of water.

The lower lock drained and the 4 boats that had been waiting were up next. The lead pair stopped just inside the gates forcing the lock operator yell at them to “MOVE FORWARD!!!” so the boats behind could enter. The first pair was rafted together because one of them had run out of gas. The lock operator was not happy about it. He diplomatically said something to them but the tone of his comment was “don’t do this again”.

The operator closed the gate, opened the valve letting water from the upper lock flow in through an 8 foot wide culvert. The water was roiling! Every once in a while a rush of spray came out the far end. The operator explained that air gets into the system and when pressure builds it’s pushed out.

Soon it was full and the operator opened the middle gate so the boats could power into the upper lock.

It was quite fascinating to watch.

We went back to the Wildlife Drive for another pass. We got some more photos but more importantly, met a non-obnoxious birder. We told him about the Cornell kiddos, and Paul mentioned that they were either great birders or awful ones, calling out three species of Swallow, Tree, Bank, Barn. And this guy did it also, right in front of us but then taught us how to tell them apart when they’re flying (they’re fast). This is what the birding community is usually like. He also taught us how to ID the Bobolink, which is hard to distinguish when not in breeding plumage. So we got two more life birds, the Barn Swallow and the Bobolink.

A little further into the loop there was another body of water and we spotted these cuties, Wood Ducks. During breeding season the boys are brilliantly colored. Right now they’re in their eclipse phase. If you look closely the boy on the right is scratching himself with his giant webbed foot.

We also saw a few turtles sunning themselves in this pond.

Then it was back to May’s Point to see if the Little Heron was there. It wasn’t. But we met the nice fellow there again.

The Egrets had been bunched up in a crowd in the morning but were equally spaced farther apart from each other. Our bird teacher told us that it was likely because they had had all day to stake out their territories.

Paul had a block of something for dinner. Susan was still stuffed from the late lunch finally getting a bit hungry around 9PM so she had a salad. (susan here: we lead such a rockstar life.)

Life Birds: 2 (Barn Swallow, Bobolink)