This week was better than last in the lumbering department, but not by much.
Yes, skipping Monday was my fault for staying up too late on Sunday watching England play Mexico (totally worth it), but the heat, humidity, and bugs of the early morning woods had me scaling back my now normal 6-mile loop to 5-mile loops for two of the week’s four lumbers.
Of course, back in the summer of 2022, when I first flirted with the somewhat lame idea to ditch the gym, walk past my unused bikes, and start lumbering in the woods with my camera, my first 5-mile lumbers left me in a heap of back spasms, cramps, sore feet, and fatty suck soaked in gravy-like sweat. Now, only doing 5 miles is yet another reason I feel like a man-child slacker. But as Marsellus Wallace once said to Butch, “You fight through that shit.” And I did.
Friday’s lumber did present some unique photo ops with the woodland critters.
My first encounter was with a male Downey Woodpecker along the trail who was unfazed by my presence and allowed me to get a few shots of him as he flew from branch to branch looking for something yummy to eat. Something he found in the last photo of the pecker set, if you look closely.
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After that, about a mile later, back in the darkness of the early morning woods, I was approaching an area near the river where I often see eagles and ospreys, when I heard something scurry up and into a hollow tree to my left as I scanned the towering trees opposite the river.
Soon, I saw that it was a baby raccoon, and I hurriedly dropped my shutter speed from an “eagle perched in the sky” 1/800 or 1/1000 of a second to an almost worthless 1/80th in a futile attempt to capture the moment in the dark without motion blur.
Then, as I was shooting, I saw more movement in the tree and noticed there was another baby raccoon in the tree as well!
The images are not the best quality due to me being very much NOT a professional, but I captured a cool moment with a couple of critters.
For the next couple of miles, it was pretty chill, with just the sounds of birds calling deep in the woods, drops of water falling from the leaves above after the night’s thunderstorms, and a parade of flying insects buzzing my hairy ear-holes coated in bug spray.
As I closed in on 5 miles, a light rain started. What rain made it through the canopy of leaves above felt refreshing, so I took time to mentally enjoy the sound of the rain falling as I covered my camera.
Soon, I was nearly done, and making my way up the steps to the suspension bridge over the river when I heard what sounded like a scared deer snorting loudly, but it turned out to be a startled heron, hearing me trudging up to the bridge.
In the brief seconds it took the giant bird to navigate its huge turning radius, I hurriedly spun my shutter wheel to 1/1600th of a second and got a shot of it and a little buddy flying away as the rain fell. It’s not the greatest photo, but it captured the moment that I realized that a Great Blue Heron could let out a snort like that.
I never tire of the local wildlife, and Friday’s critter encounters really helped take the sting out of another slack week of lumbering.
Later.
Here’s an extra pic taken amongst my wildflower garden on Thursday afternoon.
