October 29th, 2021

Tiny Little Frog is here!  My favourite map ever!

This past Wednesday was hiking day, as per usual so Joy and I headed out on our Photo Safari!  Finally one of our favourite Hiking places re-opened (It's been closed since July!) so we did not pass Go, we did not collect $200, we went directly to Carlton Reserve! Yahoo!  The fact that Carlton was open once more was a happy surprise which set the tone for the entire excursion.  This shall be called the Hike of Happy Surprises!

As you already know (gosh I've said it enough times now!) we start out early on these hikes.  We love that early light:

And we don't mind the wet feet from the heavy dew:

One of the best surprises were the number and variety of birds that we saw!  Lately on most of our hikes we've primarily seen the same birds over and over.  This time, there was a much more interesting variety.  We think that it might have to do with the place being closed for so long?  I did not get pictures of every bird we saw. Sometimes they just zoom by so fast that I'm not quick enough.  Other times, I just stand there gaping in awe and just plain forget to lift the camera for the shot  which is the reason I have no photos of the two hawks we saw.  Dang. I'm not sure why I didn't get the 4th kind of woodpecker (yes we saw 4 different kinds in one day!) or the cardinal but hey. It is what it is and I got what I got. But here are some of the others:

There were actually a lot of different kinds of butterflies but I only was able to get a good photo of one kind.  There were a lot of different sorts of bees (I don't think I got any of those), dragonflies (got one) and so many spiders!

There were flowers and seed pods galore.  The seed pods are especially dear to me because, other than the deliciously cooler temperatures, it's the only way we know that it's autumn here. While they may not be pretty in the traditional sense, I think they are beautiful.

We were out there for about 4 hours and only managed to cover about 4 miles which is kind of slow, I realize, but that's because there are so many things to see.  And if you don't just stop and look around, you will miss the most amazing things.  We go to great lengths to capture the photos we are seeking but it's only because we enjoy photography so much and the quality of our work matters to us.  We go off trail, climb up on top of things we shouldn't climb on, kneel, sit and lay on the ground, wait so patiently a LOT  and wade into tall grasses,  prickly thickets and marshes trying to get just that perfect photo.

Okay, here it is, the end of the road, my favourite category, The Rando Files:

It truly was a hike of Happy Surprises.  It was our first bluebird of the season, the little yellow warbler bird is nearly impossible capture because they move so darned fast.  The little frog on the map was a delightful surprise, the beautiful day that never got too hot, the fact that Carlton was open again were all surprise.  The fact that we didn't have to jump any creeks or build any frond bridges or double back at all were wonderful surprises.  It wasn't crowded, we saw no feral hogs or bitey snakes and Joy did not get eaten up by mosquitos. 

Every hike should be this good.  Sounds like a plan to me.