July 21st, 2023

First of all, Thank you to Joy for the above photo!  She is so dang clever!

Are you buckled in and ready for another Photo Safari Report?  The weather has not been conducive to hiking lately so we were lucky to sneak this one in.  We left even earlier in the morning on Thursday to get ahead of the predicted rainstorm AND the worst of the heat and humidity.  And I'm happy to report that our plan worked!  Welcome to the Early Morning Hike.
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The ground and the green stuff was heavy with the previous nights rain when we started out so in very short order our socks and shoes were soaked. No worries.  We are not put off by a little inconvenience and we forged on.  The bonus is that we got some pretty water drop pictures.  We'll start with just a couple of them, if you don't mind:

We heard more birds than we saw, so we knew they were out there, somewhere, but the lush and somewhat overgrown trails and full, robustly leafed out trees made for too many good hiding places to get a lot of bird pictures. But  I got three.  That's it, just three.  Of course I'll share (whether you ask me to or not!):

I think we both recognized early on that this would end up being, mostly, a botanical hike (flowers later). What I didn't realize was how many insects I would manage to capture.  A few I didn't even know about until after I got home and was editing. A nice surprise :

Ready for some pretty flowers now? I will try to keep them to a minimum, only the best ones, I promise:

By the time we finished up at Curry Creek, it was still early enough that, even though it was getting hot, we figured, what the heck.  We are already sweaty and dirty, what's a little bit more?   So we decided make aquick stop at the Rookery. Make up for the lack of bird photos from Curry Creek, maybe?  Oh yeah, we found more birds :)  Hope you like bird pictures because I got some :

A naturally, I cannot do a Photo Safari Report without at least a couple of rando's for ya:

As they summer steams forward, in more ways than one, we will still, occasionally, find a way to get out there and fight out way through overgrown trails, flooded pathways, up hills and over fallen trees.  Prepare yourselves, because now and again, there will be more Photo Safari Reports to come.  Hope you enjoyed the Early Morning Hike.​

Have a GREAT Weekend!  Hugs all 'round