Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

The organization that I work for, the National Parks Conservation Association, held a volunteer event in celebration of Earth Day at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, which is located in NE DC. There were two teams of people who headed out to pick up trash, while a smaller team (consisting of my boss, her husband, a co-worker, myself, and Jon), worked at removing some invasic species in a small area near the visitor's center. It was a gorgeous warm and sunny day. It was nice to finally have some spring weather.

Our group ended the project a little early, so we took some time to walk out on a boardwalk in the park that led us out towards the Anacostia River. Nothing was flowering in the water, but the area was still pretty with budding trees. Of course, the shoreline of the river and the surrounding water in the area is completely lined with trash. Even though various volunteer teams have gone out there to clean up trash, and many more will go throughout the summer, it seems to be an endless project trying to get the area clean. It's really sad to see so much trash in such a beautiful place.

Even though it was such a beautiful day, there was hardly anyone at the gardens, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was hard to walk around in some areas without getting chased by a male Canadian goose protecting a nesting female. And there were more turtles in the area than we've ever seen before. From tiny little ones, to huge snapping turtles, they were all over. With the day being warm and sunny and there not being many people around, many of the turtles sat out of the water sunning themselves. A few of them let us get quite close to take pictures. Of course, we ended up taking pictures in the middle of the day, so the light is fairly harsh, but they came out well regardless. The day was a lot of fun and you can check out our pictures below.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens