Wild, Wild, Southwest Ohio…

bobbbycat   treeeeetop

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frogbackckkckd

Do you ever feel like the guy on Animal Adventures, or Wild Walks, or whatever that show is called on The Animal Planet.  Or PBS.  Or whatever the heck I’m talking about?

Oh.  You know the show.  The dude… the “host”…. dresses up in some safari outfit.  All-khaki-ed-up from head to toe.  And he has one of those hats, that folds up on one side only.  And he wears it on his head slightly askew?

Heck, there are probably forty of fifty of these shows by now.  But when we were kids, there was only one.  And the guy would discover some wild, wild, things in nature.  THAT show.

Anyway, back to the beginning.  Do you ever feel like that dude?

That was me today.  Totally.

Adventure around every corner.   The first and most notable encounter occurred in the first few moments of my venture outdoors.  There, squatted down near the barn construction…. was a Bobcat.  I have heard we will get an occasional Bobcat in these parts.  But low and behold, there it was.  Amazing and remarkable.

I dropped down to my belly, and Army-Crawled until it was out of sight.  Next, I saw the very rare Snow Bunting… far up in a tree.  In April.   The photo is not that clear.  Neither is my vision. But I am pretty sure it was a Snow Bunting.  Or a Field Sparrow.  Or a  House Wren. Okay… it could have been a squirrel.

Oh.  On to the ….. next ….. there were Wild Chickens.   Wild, crazed, wobbly chickens.  Egg-layers.  Chicken Runners.  They always show up in two’s.  I think they were chasing me.  Something… about…. they wanted all their eggs back… ……..

The further I walked the more I saw.  Spring has a way of sneaking these things out of the woodwork, and the woods.

Finally, down by the pond.  These frogs were in their finest form today.  The very, very rare, and unique, Piggy-Back Frogs. They were piggy-backing all the heck over the place.

You know.  I think I could start my own wilderness show.  I might need…. maybe….. just  a little more wilderness.  Oh.  And… a hat.

“In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.”
― Ansel Adams

“Nothing is so dangerous to the progress of the human mind than to assume that our views of science are ultimate, that there are no mysteries in nature, that our triumphs are complete and that there are no new worlds to conquer.”
― Humphry Davy