Wednesday brought another morning of lumbering. It also was a chance to prove to myself yet again that I’m an idiot.

Late Tuesday afternoon/evening, I enjoyed some porch time with a couple beers while basking in England’s late winner over Italy in the Women’s European Championship semi-final. Then I went on to marinate some chicken for dinner later.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I lost track of time, and by the time I cooked my chicken, I really didn’t want it. So I ate the next best thing: two extra-large bowls of Cheerios and fresh blueberries. What the actual fuck?

I never eat blueberries [in recent years, I dig ’em; they don’t dig me], or much fruit at all, due to the fact that they tend to upset my stomach. And I was not wrong, except this time it was exacerbated by two pounds of Cheerios and milk sharing the same intestinal space. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

So while my 5.40-mile hike was good, it was not that fun, and required two pit stops to the campground outhouse stocked with 80-grit Assripz™ toilet paper. It did the job, but a skin graft may be necessary.

Did I need to share that info? No, but it’s done now. Sorry?

While I didn’t get a ton of photos during the hike today, I did have some nice critter sightings, starting before I even left the house.

Around 5:50, I took some camera gear out to my car, and I thought I saw a dog in my neighbor’s yard. Turns out it was a fawn, nibbling on some grass.

Then, about 30 minutes later, I was about a half a mile from the house, and a tall sandhill crane was slowly strutting across the road, requiring me and an oncoming car to stop and watch as it casually walked into the bean field to my left like we weren’t even there.

When I got to the park, I got my gear together and started down the limestone path that leads to the trails. As I walked along, I could see a doe on the other side of the river eating some leaves as it walked through the shallow waters near the bank.

Soon after, I was crossing the bridge over the river and saw two fawns looking at me from the other side. We just sort of looked at each other for a minute, and then they crossed and met up with a third fawn in the woods. I sort of think that they belonged to the doe eating leaves in the water a bit down from them.

All nice encounters, even though I only got a shot of one of the fawns.

As I finished my hike, I crossed the suspension bridge and saw a green heron below, stalking around some shallow water looking for food. And, as luck would have it, the camera gear I took out to my car at 5:50 was my Sigma 150-600mm lens, which, when used with the Nikon z50, gives a reach of 900mm. IF you can hold the big lens steady while attached to such a tiny camera body!

So, I put my gear away in the car, grabbed my lens, and hoped that the heron was still in the river when I returned. Thankfully, it was!

I took a few shots, then, since it looked like it was in no hurry, I sat perched amongst the rocks on the other side of the river watching it peck around the water.

It was a nice way to finish off a shitty hike (Pun? Your call!) and made me remember how much I love shooting wildlife with a proper lens. I think I’ll be doing more post-lumber photo creeping in the future, but I will just go ahead and pack the z6 body as well to make handheld shooting more balanced.

Hoping for a better hike tomorrow and better luck with critter photos. As long as I can stay away from the Cheerios and blueberries.

Later.