Well, here I sit with a completely drained body trying to speculate just how bad it is going to be tomorrow when the adrenaline drains out. Don’t feel sorry, I willingly chose to test myself once again on a nasty half marathon trail run. I wasn’t expecting the heat to come in so fast especially after heavy rains the last two days and quite frankly most of this month! I’ll leave the details for a post on the mothership blog, but today’s course was a wicked combination of multiple water crossing (one was a spillway up over the calves), rocks, roots and a nasty collection of hills that beat me down like an after school encounter with the local bully. As soon as you dived into the valleys you were suffocated by Mr. Heatmiser while you tried your best to make sure your shoes came out of the ankle deep mud. Didn’t help I smacked the ground at mile 11 badly bruising my ankle and leaving me wondering if my ribs were still attached – gotta pick up those feet Bri regardless of how tired you are! The good news is there’s new hardware on my running shelf for my efforts so as they say … worth it hehehe.
Going with a short one tonight so I can get a good amount of foam rolling in before crawling (literally) into bed.
Hit the jump to see a couple more shots of the Ibis.
The White Ibis is not a new bird to the blog having been initially featured on a post back in November of 2016 (link here). I still recall with great clarity the amount of blood I lost to Texas sized mosquitoes that had a micro second execution of land to 5 vial blood draw – shudder. If I had remembered I already had this bird in the tin from the previous year I might have opted to stay in the car in Texas. Like many of the birds already featured from Georgia, this set comes courtesy of the Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge
Like the Storks and Egrets (which have not been featured yet) there were hundreds of these birds handing out in the trees emerging from the swamps. Pretty clever if you ask me. No need to worry about ground predators. Just to get to the base of the trees a predator would have to be willing to navigate hostile waters full of Gators and lord knows what else was lurking below the murky scum. Wait, I should point out there were absolutely NO snakes in that swamp – none, nada, not a one. Amazing how the rangers managed to remove every snake from that refuge making it completely safe for visitors – rumor is there are some people who are not exactly fond of those creatures (kudos for the rangers taking care of that for ummm Linda).
It’s shots like these that make me wonder if a small brain is inherent bliss, going through life focused on the basics – eat, drink, make a nest, procreate, sleep and then wake up and repeat it all again – groundhog day without the distractions of social media, fake news and trying to coordinate outfits. There it stands in knee deep water surrounding by Gators (luckily no snakes). I half expected a razor filled mouth to burst out of the water leaving a cloud of feathers. No worries, nothing of the sort happened.
If course, there is one advantage they have over Gators, the ability to command the skies without the use of mechanical devices. For that I am envious but they don’t have any running awards so there! Take it easy everyone, its roller time.
Wildlife Intrigued 
Good to see your skills rewarded you in some hardware. Plus, some experience of running in mud could always be helpful in case of gators or snakes.
I am a bit behind on posting as I have had a back injury keeping from anything productive. Hopefully I will be amongst the living walking and blogging humans again soon. Until then can you take up my slack? LOL
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Been wondering if something had happened sorry to hear about the back, that is the one area that drives me crazy when I mess it up as there really isn’t anything you can do to work around it as every movement sets it off. As far as the Gator go, that experience doesn’t bode well for Linda as you only need to run faster than the one you are with ha. Oh, and there are no snakes at the places we visit – seems odd, but we must be lucky hehehe. Thanks for dropping by, will see if I can keep the production up for both of us until you are back on your feet.
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Thanks! Hopefully I will be able to crank out something this week.
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As I’ve come to expect, more book worthy photos and prose. You really must consider publishing sometime. I have plenty of books that show the specs, summer and winter ranges, and various plumage colors. Very few have the story behind each encounter the way you capture it. (angling for an autographed copy, can you tell?)
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well, first off, your comment didn’t go to moderation so something must be fixed – note, I’ve done nothing on my end to explain it. Your enthusiasm for the production of a book is definitely motivating me more and more – again, having already written one, I am still scarred from the emotional stress of having to proofread it about a 100 times (even backwards once) only to find out post publishing I STILL HAD typos. At least in the blog format I can immediately act upon things I see or when people are gracious enough to point out typos or bad semantic constructs and thus wipe out any memory of them – unfortunately whenever I go to my parents house I see my book on their coffee table and cringe knowing exactly what pages are not up to my standards. Some day I might break down and give it a go .. maybe when I retire… and yes, will get you a special copy and likely a special mention in the book itself.
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Yes, Brad, I’ve been telling Brian to write a bird book for years!! He’s got great photographs and stories behind them. Please nag him incessantly from your location and I’ll robo-call him from here until he starts writing it!
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You two are relentless…. and knowing you have written multiple books and articles you obviously know what a huge undertaking that is. Although, I will say, if I’ve added up all the posts I’ve made over the last 12 years, my word output has been pretty impressive. One day I may get the itch, but right now, rather spend my extra time in California birding ha!
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No, no, please spend your time writing a book. No need to worry about adding new birds to your count, and certainly no need to venture into California again. You’re way ahead of me, for sure, and I probably won’t get more than a bird or two for the rest of the year so no worries. Maybe you can buy a boat, too.
Ron
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Must get more birds, must get more birds hehehehe
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