Nature, nuture, nature #natureismychurch #SMNWR #magic

Monday (March 29) we went for a bike ride at the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. As you all know, the Refuge is my favorite part of north Florida. It’s a magical place full of birds, insects, flowers, trees, marshes, swamps, turtles, and alligators, to name a few of my favorite things. Without further ado …

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Thistles, specifically, the Horrible Thistle (Cirsium horridulum)–no doubt named for it’s spiny stem and leaves–lined the trails we rode on. We had a slow start on our ride because both of us had to stop and take photos.

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In all the years we’ve visited the Refuge, we’ve never seen so many thistles.

Insects were enjoying them too. I guess you could say there was a lot of pollinating going on.

Other wildflowers and creatures were in abundance as well.

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  Sagittaria platyphylla

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  Southern Fleabane, Aster family

My favorite frog, the tree frog, delta duck potato (that’s the Sagittaria platyphylla) and southern fleabane.

We took the long way around, over the farthest dike which I don’t believe I had been on before. We’ve traveled these trails by foot many times, but usually taking the dikes more inland. As we went back inland, more thistles.

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A bald eagle on *his* tree. The majority of times we’ve come out here, he’s perched on that branch.

More water. I know there’s alligators in those waters, but often I wish we would ply our canoe around the marshy area.

It looks serene. Not too far from this spot, there is a primitive camping area. My husband said he’d like to camp there someday. Lovely idea … if only we didn’t have bad knees and bad backs and I wasn’t afraid of gators on land.

I could see he had a big grin, as if to say, “Come on in. The water’s fine!” No, thank you.

I think this guy was playing hide-and-seek. No matter where I walked, his head was hidden by the reeds. Fortunately, he’s too large to be completely hidden.

We saw a couple of other gators on our ride, but they were actually ON the trail so there was no stopping for photo ops. We just kept spinning our wheels and holding our breaths until we were clear.

Ah, life in North Florida. Even Raji likes St. Marks.

Ha ha ha … I LOVE photography apps! I made this photo of Raji at St. Marks with the Superimpose Classic app. It only costs $1.99, and this is the first photo merge I’ve done. I’m so happy with it, I had to put my name on it 😉

I hope you enjoyed the trip. Another one will be coming up soon!

I hope you all are well, healthy, happy, and vaccinated (if not now, then soon).

Categories: Nature

Marie A Bailey

Writer, blogger, knitter, cat lover, and introvert.