May 25th, 2022

This way to see a blue bird?  Nah, I'm teasing.   It's one of the markers for a trail called the Scrub Jay trail at Oscar Scherer State Park.  And if you hike that trail you MIGHT see a blue bird. But then again, you might not.   There are never any guarantees on what a person might find on any of the hiking paths.  And birds are notorious for ignoring any and all signage.   Regardless of any bird appearances,  obviously, this means that Joy and I were out on yet another Photo Safari.  And since we actually did see Scrub Jays (though not necessarily on that particularly named trail) I think I will call this one the Scrub Jay hike.  Why not?  I gotta call it something.

It's starting to feel very summery outside here, which means higher temps, higher humidity and a higher chance of precipitation.  And in fact there had been some bodacious storms the night before.  So we were beyond grateful that throughout the hike there was a lovely breeze, sporadic cloud cover and only leftover drops of rain.  It was a nice long hike too, a little over 4 miles, with lots to see!    If you care to find out what we saw, that's coming up next.

First of all,  there were far more cooperative bugs than usual. Normally they are always on the move, and fast!  Zipzipzip!  which makes it really hard to capture something so dang tiny.  This time, however, I was a little more successful than usual:

Birds, naturally.  There were a LOT of birds.  And not just the ones we HEARD.  This time there were birds that we laid eyes on.   I will try to select just some of my favourites. And you know what?  I think I will give the Jays their own section. Just too many good ones to combine with the rest.  So the section following this will be the Jays:

​As promised (or perhaps threatened?), I hope you like the colour blue because, here come the Jays:

There were a couple of other critters:

Lovely Botannicals of all sorts:

There are always beautiful trails and cool random things seen along the trails:

So I guess that's pretty much it.  Hope you enjoyed the Scrub Jay Hike.  I'm excited to see what we find on our next foray into the wilds.