March 01st, 2023

Hi there, it's us again.  The intrepid hikers!  Joy took this photo with her cellphone and kindly shared it with me.  Good lookin' group eh?

Yesterday we headed out on Photo Safari and I believe this will be called the, "Little Bit of Everything Hike" because it kind of was.  First of all, this photo was taken at our 3rd stop.  Third!  The first two preserve choices were closed. Of course we did not know that they were closed until we arrived but oh well, three's the charm I suppose :)   

Clearly, we had a little bit of bad luck and a little bit of good luck.  That works. We don't much care where we hike as long as we get to be out there, y'know?   You may notice as we stroll through the photos that some of the pictures are bright and other's rather gloomy.  That's because there were moments of very bright beautiful sunlight and other times when the sun was covered by a thick layer of clouds and suddenly it was much cooler and darker.  Little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Initially we thought the hike was going to be a bust.  We didn't even hear any birds!  We were honestly kind of disappointed. Still, we always try to make the best of every situation so we kept our eyes and ears peeled for photo opportunities.

At the beginning, I mostly took tree pictures.  I tend to take a lot of tree pictures for many reason.  The first of  being that trees tend to not move around which makes it ever so much easier to capture them.  But in general I just like trees.  The spooky creepy arms, their solid massive presence, the colours, the shady parts of the trail on a hot day, the homes they provide for woodland creatures.....  So sue me, I like trees!

This particular preserve is so thickly forested and the trees are soo huge that it's hard to imagine.  Here's a picture of Joy in front of a section of trees. Note how tiny she is in comparison.  I mean you cannot even see the tree tops and she's still in the lower quarter of the photo: 

It's a good thing the rangers maintain the trails.  Otherwise we would need machete's to get through!  As it was, there was a bit of an obstacle course feel to it.  Some parts of the trail were perfectly clear but other parts, not so much.  We didn't have to deal with mucky, muddy, flooded trails, so we will not complain about having to climb over a few trees:

Oh, and remember how I said we didn't hear any birds?  Well that was true for awhile, and then, suddenly, it was like somebody flipped the bird switch and suddenly they were everywhere!  Even I could capture a few of them!  Whoa!

But those were not the only creatures we saw!  Much like the rest of this hike, there were areas with absolutely nothin' worth even trying to capture and then suddenly, there was Everything! We were snapsnapsnapping in every direction!

Part of the hikes we were deep in  the forest, other times we were along the river.  And it's so pretty all on it's own, that it deserves it's own category.  Since this is the dry season, the water is especially low right now. Still beautiful.

Found some pretty flowers too:  (flowers don't move much either, so they are another great photography subject for me!)

Here is the last of it, the rando's, just a few this time 'round:

I guess that's it for today!   The Little Bit of Everything Hike was a great success to us.  Hope you enjoyed it too.  

​I promise, no more photo safari reports this week. ;)