February 02nd, 2023

On Monday, Joy, Bob, me and the monopod, headed out for a Photo Safari!  It was a gorgeous day, as you can see from the photo above.  It felt so good to be back out in the forest on the trails.  We chose a small local preserve, Curry Creek, for our first time back out.  It had been awhile and I will admit to feeling a wee bit insecure about it all.

 And not just about traversing uneven ground! (which I'm told is very normal after a fall).  I knew that even with the monopod (and thank goodness for it!) I would be a little limited in what pictures I could capture.  And that's fine.  As (I believe) Clint Eastwood once said (as a character in a film)  "It's a wise man (or in this case woman) who knows his limitations".  I am very well versed in my limitations.  So rather than fight it, I planned to focus on botanical shots.  They tend to not move around very much.  I am good with that :)  I'm calling this Photo Safari the Mostly Botanical Hike for that reason.  

But it wasn't ONLY botanicals (and I'm sure you are relieved to hear that!) In fact, one of my very first photos that day was of birds!  Bob was the one who spied them up in a tree off trail.  I was reluctant to even try at first.  Birds and other living creatures, rarely hold still.   And birds in trees are especially hard to capture because trees are not tidy and neat!  There are branches and leaves or sprills  pointed in all sorts of different directions, getting in the way of the shot and by the time you have yourself (and the camera) correctly positioned, birds are notorious for choosing that moment to take flight once again.  I strongly suspect that they wait, giggling all the while, intentionally avoiding the camera.

I can't say as I blame them. We are, for all intents and purposes, paparazzi's in their lives. Uninvited and intrusive. I would feel bad for them except I really want those shots!  LOL  (Probably what other paparazzi's say)  At any rate, here they are:

Here and there I managed to get a few other birds.  It was a surprise to me for sure!  But I probably missed as many (or more) than I captured.  Joy, on the other hand, got some real beauties~  Her photography is amazing.   Here are mine:

This particular preserve has two sides and one is only accessible over a creek (I assume it's the actual Curry Creek).  There is no bridge and it's too wide to jump so usually we can only go to the other side when the water level is very low or during the deepest part of winter (our dry season) when most of the water has dried up.  But on this particular day, someone else had taken fallen pine branches and built a kind of causeway across.  It wasn't fool proof, as it was a little slippery, a little uneven and bumpy from the stacks and layers of branches and in some places more than a little wet. I had a moment of hesitation, concerned about possibly falling (again!) but I don't want to live in fear and the phrase, "What's life without risk" ran through my little punkin' head, so I took I deep breath and very carefully walked (successfully) across! Yay!  

​Here is Joy traversing the pine branch bridge across the creek.   Perhaps you can see that it's a bit muddy and boggy and very wet if you do not step carefully enough.  By the way, I did not step carefully enough.  Came home with wet shoes and filthy socks :)  heh

The balance of my photos are just botannicals. I say "just" as if they weren't important to me.  That's not at all true.  I adore flowers and all green growing things.   I will try to find the ones that are the best of the lot so I don't inundate you with pictures :)

Thus ends the Mostly Botanicals Hike.  I'm sure that we will get out there and now that I am feeling a little more secure about not tripping and falling on wet things or over tree roots or rocks, or injuring someone else with my monopod, we will get brave and do longer, more interesting and photogenic photo Safari's.  

​Hope you enjoyed!