April 24th, 2026

Welcome to another Photo Safari Report!  I'll call this one the Quick and Painless hike because it was both.    Due to time constraints it was a short hike and probably because it was a short hike, nobody's feet required icing afterwards!  Woohoo!  It was still absolutely worth the time to be tramping around in nature for a little bit and Joy and I always enjoy time spent together so it's all good.

Obviously, since it was a shorter hike, I don't have very  many photos.  Add in the fact that most of the (very few) pictures I actually did take, didn't turn out very good. Not sure what the dealio was on that. I mentioned it to Joy and she said many of her pictures didn't come out well either.  Odd.  Just one of those days I suppose.  Luckily at least One of Joy's pictures was a really good one. It's the one at the top of the page  :)

The rest of the pictures are mine, such as they are and I reckon we can go through them together it you like. Honestly, it'll only take a minute or two.  Very few photos today.  Very Very few pictures. (sigh)

I think this was one of only two pictures of birds that I ended up with, and it was hard won!  Woodpeckers move fast and the tree was quite full and lush which means lots of hiding spots.  I am actually surprised that I got this one! It's far from  perfect, but you can tell what it is.  

The only other bird picture was of cardinals, Mr and Mrs both, which makes it an unusual photo on it's own. We saw dozens of cardinals zipping through the foliage like little missiles - zooom!  Impossible for me to capture even on my best day. But then we came across these two, way way way down the trail ahead of us and we were still and quiet so as not to disturb them, used telephoto lenses and.... success (of sorts)

I did get a couple of caterpillar pictures of my own too. They were everywhere, we had to keep an eye out constantly to keep from accidentally stepping on any!  Here is one of them.  Watching them eat their way through the forest I keep hearing the "hungry hungry hippos" song in my head.

I have a couple of botanicals that aren't too bad. I'll throw them in the mix too. Why not!  At this point, every half way decent photo counts!

And that's it.  The entire lot.  Sad, but true.  

It was still a great day. In fact, as far as weather goes, it was a perfect day!  Dry (in fact very dry. Our weather bulletins are in bright red, reporting a critical lack of humidity. critical!)  but low temps, 60 to low 70's.  Just about perfect. Far too nice to spend time indoors.

Thanks for coming along on the Quick and Painless Hike.  Wishing all of you a terrific weekend. Hope we meet here again next week!

​Hugs all 'round