February 20th, 2025

Whatever shall I write about today? Care to venture a guess?  If you picked Photo Safari Report you would be correct! And for those of you counting, that means I did 3, count 'em, 3 blog posts this week!  Woohoo!  Of course last week I only did 1 so I suppose I'm making up for it. Balance in the Universe ya'll, it 's a real thing.

Even though the rest of this week was sunny and gorgeous, this particular hiking day started out, once again, grey and gloomy.  Yuck.  It was also windy, sprinkly and chilly.  Great.  But Joy and I didn't let that get us down. Nope.  We decided that since we probably weren't going to get any  terrific photos on such a wet and dreary day, we may as well go for broke. We drove all the heck the way to Port Charlotte (about 45 minutes away) to  walk around Ollie's Pond.  And since it's in the area we would also hit Pennington Park.  What the heck, why not?  So this Photo Safari Report will be the Pond and Park Hike.

I have to say that we were a bit disappointed in Ollie's.  In the past it was such a lovely walk, absolutely teeming with wildlife of all sorts.  But now it's overgrown, and needs to be dredged badly. The lack of care means less of a food source which in turn means less wildlife. Very Sad.  That said, Joy and I are troopers of the first order. We didn't let that get us down. We took every photo that there was to be had before moving on.

At Pennington we fared much better. Partly because Pennington seems to be better cared for but also because, at last the sun began to emerge now and again and at least some of the photos are beautifully and naturally lit.   I did the best I could in edit with the first set, but it's really and truly not the same. You will be able to tell as you watch the slideshows which photos are from which hike. 

Onward:

Let's begin with the birds, always a good place to start:

Next up, botanicals and this time I got a few wildflowers.  It's beginning to feel a lot like spring around here:

I think it's about time to throw a few Rando's in the mix now.   Looks like I've got everything from soup to nuts, or at least squirrels to canoes:

So ends the Pond and Park Photo Safari Report.  Hope you enjoyed!  We will try to come up with something even better for next time!  See ya then!