March 19th, 2021

 "The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."  Robert Frost

Yes!  You Guessed it!  It's time for another Photo Safari Report!  YAYAYAYAY!

On this past Wednesday Joy and I headed out to a new to us preserve.  A long time ago we actually looked for it, couldn't find it, gave up and went elsewhere.  This time, we found it! Hurrah!  So I guess this was the New Preserve Hike.
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It was a beautiful place,  lush and lovely with trails that were thickly carpeted with pine needles and leaves so that our steps were hushed.   The fragrance of pine trees and the sound of bird song filled the air around us.  It was dark and cool because the sun barely penetrated the thick forest for quite some time.  Which is probably why the words to that Robert Frost poem kept running through my head.

Eventually the light was high enough in the sky that we could see more of our surroundings and in full light, it was even more beautiful.   There is something very special about the first time trekking through an area.  We had no idea what was around any curve in the trail, not a clue if we were going to find anything photo worthy or not.

Spoiler alert.  We did.  The birds were everywhere around us, we could hear them, but the forest was so thick that they hid from us easily.  In fact, the forest was so thick that we did not see the deer that leaped across the trail in front of us, until he was nearly gone!   And once he crossed into the foliage, he was again completely invisible once again.  Wow!

It was a beautiful place to hike, but one entire section was cordoned off leaving only the shorter trail open.  Ratz.  We loved it, but we weren't done. So we got back in the car and headed to another set of trails, also a short set. But our thought was that two shorter hikes might equal one longer hike and that works too.  We always have a plan B.

Our luck with finding birds improved at the second preserve:

And a few butterflies.  One may be a moth. I'm really not certain. (I really ought to look that up one of these days.)  Oh and another dragonfly.  And another bug that I'm not sure what it is either.  Maybe a leaf walker?

More flowers of course:

Last but never least, my favourite category, the miscellaneous file:

All in all, another awesome photo safari!  Hope you enjoyed it too.

Wishes for a wonderful weekend.  Hope you have the chance to get outside for a bit. It does a body good.

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