Camera' s Eye: Blakely State Park Revisited

After our last visit to Blakely Park, Lee and her hubby took their camper up there for the weekend. She called and told me to come over on Monday. We'd go hiking and find some other interesting things to photograph. She'd seen deer and heard some wild turkeys while they were out on an early morning hike.I got over there around 9:30 AM and off we went down a trail that is part of the Forever Wild Program.

Before we even left the campground, I took this shot of a little wild Iris.

This shrubby tree with the red flowers is a Red Buckeye.

This plant, with it's up turned big leaves was quite numerous in the understory... I have no idea what it is, but I'm gonna find out!

After climbing down a deep ravine, we came upon this lovely, clear stream with a small waterfall.

Love that trickling sound of water cascading over rocks!

This "bloom" was the oddest thing I've seen yet. At first, we thought it was a fungus of some sort...the "flower" didn't seem to have an obvious opening and it was sort of spongy feeling. We did see another cluster just like this further down the trail.

This red flower on another shrub is also a mystery plant...maybe Liz will know what it's called.

Apparently, we were so busy taking photos that we missed the beginning of the trail Lee had planned on us taking. After hiking for a while, we discovered ourselves at the old cemetery where we had been the first time we went to the park. So we turned around and hiked back. (We had to climb back down and up that steep ravine again!)

Turns out it wasn't far from the trail head we started off on, so off down it we went. It had several bridges.... one was over a wetland area.

Can you see the moth in this photo? It's an owlet moth called a Short Lined Chocolate. Mmmmm, it does look like dark, velvety chocolate...

Still trying to ID this butterfly..

I think this one is a Zebra Swallowtail. The early spring ones are smaller in size and it was in a swampy woodland...their favorite habitat. Wish it had it's wings open, but, whatta ya gonna do??

We saw a bring splash of pink and Lee crawled through the underbrush to get this photo of a wild azalea. (Braver than me... I didn't want to find myself with ticks and chiggers!)

After hiking and hiking and hiking and seeming to get no where, we finally met up with a hiker and his sweet puppy. Turns out we were still on the wrong trail - again.Only now we were getting a bit tired and thirsty. Nothing to do but turn around and head back.

I thought this caramel - colored magnolia leaf was interesting... either that or it looked like something edible in my mind...Did I mention that by this time we were thirsty AND hungry?

Lots of critters in the woods... we didn't see anything bigger than an owl and a Swallowtail kite...neither of which came close enough to photograph. There were the tracks though...above: Raccoon....below: Deer.