September 11th, 2023

What the heck?  Road Closed?  High Water?  Wasn't that hurricane a couple of weeks ago?  Shouldn't things have settled back down by now?  Well you'd think so, but there ya go.  Joy and I set out of Myakka State Park for a photo Safari on Friday and while the main road through the park was still open, most of the side roads were sporting a similar sign.  Dang!

Even without the signage, we are certainly smart enough to avoid flooded trails, paths and roads.  So we weren't certain what, if anything, photo worthy we would find.  Not to worry, there were plenty of photographs taken.   For obvious reasons with will be the High Water Hike, even though there wasn't a lot of actual hiking involved this time around.

Naturally, the high water itself was an interesting photo subject:

And because the water was so high it was in places it usually isn't which also means that sometimes the wildlife was in places it usually isn't. I speak in particular of the gator sort of wildlife. They get their own category today. Don't worry, we are alwasy very careful. Remember Joy's motto:  Always know where your alligators are!

There were beautiful botanicals of all sorts and I took loads of those photos.  I will only torture you with a few:

There was the non-flood water as well, of course.  The Myakka River on it's own is always a stunner.  And the light was especially good.  There is some light that is just made for photography. I'm sure you've heard of the Golden Hour of photography?  That's the light at the end of the day, between when the sun starts to set and full dark.  Early morning light is often very nice as well, clean and clear and crisp.  But this was mid-morning when the sunlight is usually starting to be harsh;  it bleaches out the colour and leaves photos looking very flat and washed out.  Well, we got lucky because just when, normally we would be having dealing with full sun, instead the sky starting to cloud up leaving some especially nice conditions for photos.   You can judge for yourself:

As far as wildlife goes, well, hmmm.  We saw a ton of dragonflies but they were flying the entire time, Nobody landed. Saw bees, also flying.  But not a single deer, not one raccoon, we were armadillo-less and saw nary a single squirrel.  However there were birds. Loads of birds. Lots and lots of birds!  So I have bird photos. So many in fact, that I think I'll break it up into two different slideshows for you.  

Bird Slideshow One:

Bird Slideshow the Second:

And here we are having come to the end of the High Water Hike!  It will probably be a few weeks before the next Photo Safari so I hope this one will hold you over until next time.  Make no mistake, I will be posting again later this week, but the Photo Safari Report ?  It'll happen again, just not for a few weeks.

​Hope your weekend was an absolute Delight!