June 19th, 2026

Well howdy do folks! Haven't talked at ya since Monday's blogpost, so I suppose that means this will be another one!  And as you can probably guess from the photo above of Joy on a hiking trail, Yes, this will be a Photo Safari Report!  I'm calling this one the Yellow Flowers and Cardinals Hike. The reasons will be obvious, shortly.

 Our part of Florida is currently under a heat advisory, so even though we do set out pretty early in the morning, we were also clever enough to choose a preserve with a lot of shade. The little breeze off the river was a nice addition.    And even though we have had some rain, technically, far less than normal, which makes us still smack dab in the middle of a drought.  Despite that we were delighted to see not just a higher level of water in the river but also a few boggy spots here and there and one place where we had to step over water moving across the trail.  Yay!  Never thought I'd be happy to see swampy stuff!

Once again not a lot of wildlife. We saw one squirrel, two lizards and a few birds. I only captured one lizard, zero squirrels and only one sort of bird. Lots of photos of that ONE sort of bird tho. Obviously, from the title, cardinals.  Here are a few of those. None of them are great shots but hey, is what is y'know?

oh yeah, and two lizards:

 No squirrel photos. He was moving way too fast, leaping from branch to branch, tree to tree clearly on a mission!

Because we were hiking primarily along the river I got a lot of photos of two specific things:  Reflections because the river was especially slow moving which made the surface like a mirror:

And Obstacles.  In this particular preserve, the trail is narrow  and cluttered with downed trees which Joy and I go either over or under, as best we can.  This was also where we had the tiny rivulet of water crossing the trail at one point. Naturally I had to take a picture of it to celebrate More Water which is so desperately needed right now. Anyway, obstacles of one sort or another:

    The other thing we found, in abundance, was yellow flowers!  Masses of them, everywhere.  Sometimes in surprising places!  Of course I clickity clicked on those.

There were a couple of other colours of flowers here and there and I didn't want them to feel left out so I snapped those too:

I suppose all that's left now are the randos, which, as you know, is my favourite category:

OH!  And one dragonfly!  I was especially tickled that i got this one because while there were a zillion or so dragonflies zipping around, they were all moving at light speed. I move more at donut speed.  When they finally did slow down or stop, they would be in the most difficult spots to capture.  I always try anyway and usually end up deleting the picture in the end. But this time 'round, I got him!  (or her, I have no idea)  Anyway, here it is. Hard won but nonetheless a Taadaa!

Anyway, have a great weekend! Celebrate all fathers while doing so!  They deserve it!

​Hugs all 'round