A Forest Robin

I'm finally able to have some new pictures that are more like my older stuff, some wildlife in the forest. American robins like this one were some of my most frequent subjects. That's mostly because they never mind having their picture taken.

Most other animals, like the rabbit I saw the other day, run away so fast that I never have even the smallest chance of getting any pictures. I've gotten better at catching them over the years, but my fast camera ability has gotten a bit rusty over the last year or so.

It's kind of easy to get pictures of a big waterfall or a statue, or even a few cows, but little forest creatures are another matter. All I have to do to take pictures of scenery is to stand there pointing my camera for however long I want, and the picture comes out okay every time. It's not really going anywhere very fast.

But even this robin didn't stick around for very long. It hopped along this fallen tree trunk and then posed on this old branch for a few seconds, and then it just up and flew away. I never saw it again. The good thing was that there were plenty of other robins in the forest.

American robins are a bit different than most other birds. They like to hop along on the ground a lot. You don't see many other kinds of birds on the forest floor. And they make so much racket hopping through the leaves that you'd swear that you were hearing bigger animals walking around in the forest.

The noise that robins make when it gets kind of dark and you're not used to the forest can be a little disturbing. You may think there are animals all around you. There are, but they're not the bigger animals you begin thinking of. They're just these friendly little robins. I really like them. I'll talk to you later.

Back To The Forest

I took a little unplanned break. I originally planned to come right back after my buffalo post, but I got kind of distracted with day to day things around here. My house is a little bit run down, and it needed a few repairs. There's still some work to do, but the rest isn't too urgent.

Anyway, I've been saying over and over that I needed to get back out to the forest for quite some time now. Some of you remember that this is what this blog used to be pretty much about. There's just so much to see around here that I keep getting sidetracked.

And then there's the fact that I had to wait for hunting season to end before I went back out. Obviously I didn't think that I would be among the hunted. I'm a human after all, just to confirm it to those of you who might not be sure. Hey, you never know on the faceless internet. I just didn't want there to be any unnecessary accidents, and there were plenty of hunters out there.

So on the first warm day after hunting season had ended, I went out to my favorite nature park around here, Five Ridge Prairie Preserve. The name can fool you, the first section of this park is all forest. It also has another section of woods past the first of a series of giant hills, which also includes a nice little creek running through it.

I stuck to the first section of the park this time, mainly because I never did get the time last winter to keep myself in good enough shape to go several miles into any park. I spent most of the winter sitting in the house or in my truck. I'll have to work my way up to long hikes, which I'll get to eventually.

The good thing is that there's plenty to see here in the first section of the park. That consists mostly of trees and more trees, but that's the way I like it. There are more trees back in Michigan, but I lived in a more urban area, so in my case there really wasn't.

Even in the small nature parks that I visited there, I experienced a peace of mind that is hard for me to fully describe whenever I was in the middle of all those trees. I feel that even more in the huge wild places here like this one. This place is so big that you could get lost without ever being found again. With that in mind, I stick close to the trails.

At the end of the forest there is a huge open valley that I like to visit. It's mostly tall grass, with a few trees here and there. Birds just love it down there. There's a nice river that runs through that section of the park. One of these times I'll get back down there, but for now I'm enjoying the sanctuary of the forest.

There were several other people here because of the unusually warm weather, so I didn't stay too long. I really like to be alone out here, which I am on most days. Once I begin going deep into the place, it won't matter how many people come here anyway, because most others don't go very far. I guess all of that makes me kind of a loner, but that's the way I like it, so it's okay.

So with my first trip to the woods this year out of the way, I'll talk to you later.