Day #362 Sssssssss cycling.

Hog-nosed Snake, Belleville to Bancroft Trail 2006

The true benefits of cycling off-road and on trails is the chance to spot, watch, or even photograph all the critters of the woods and fields that share the trail with you.
This picture is of a hog-nosed snake, a very gentle snake as far as humans go.
Possibly the mice and grasshoppers think differently.
While cycling, I've seen coyotes, foxes, rabbits, mice, frogs, toads, snakes, birds of every kind, orange-bummed bumble bees, and many beautiful and very photographic insects.
I've seen wonderful landscape scenes. Seen sunsets of such beauty that you linger with tears in your eyes, and forget time.
You may like to take a pair of light-weight binoculars with you and make them readily accessible.
Be careful! You wouldn't want to take a spill on a pair of binocs but you want to be able to grab them quickly.
Cycling is Serendipity itself, experiencing the unexpected.
Last year, in Ont., I was fortunate to see and photograph this hog-nosed snake. It just looked like a twisted branch from a fruit tree lying on the trail. When I stopped, it played dead. However, if a person were to reach out and to turn it over on its back, it will immediately flip right back over onto its belly, and then play dead again. I loved that naive and vulnerable critter, and was proud to get its picture.
I'm hoping that the B.C. bears will just hide - and the cougars, and the rattlesnakes. As a rule, wolves never attack people so I'm not worried there. Actually, I got rather close to a coyote once, and got a very good picture.
I would so love to take a dog with me, but then I'd definitely miss all these kinds of shots. I haven't ruled that option out yet, though.
In PEI, at least every 2 km., one or more Golden-Winged Flickers would fly up from the gravel of the trail, and even occasionally a Great Blue Heron that had been hiding in a pond beside the trail. I saw hundreds of both types of birds. They are everwhere on the Island. The flickers, a type of woodpecker, are incredibly beautiful with their deep dark gold colour underneath their wings and their brown and black mottled back.
Lots of insects on trails, (that's why so many PEI flickers) and you'll even see sandy little red hills (bumps) where the ants have mounded up the earth in many areas.
There were caterpillars of every colour and type crossing the trail that fall and tempting fate. I took a picture of a lovely tomato worm, really a caterpillar, fat and bright, bright green. When you're trying to do a close-up of a caterpillar, you'd be surprised at how 'fast' they actually do move.
It's hard too get down so low at my age, lying on the gravel and dirt. Albeit red dirt. I should have made my own t-shirt with 'PEI Photographer' written across the red stains.
Well, you will get dirty while cycling but it's good dirt.
So, get down and dirty. Go have a great cycling experience of your own, and I hope I meet you on the trail - when it warms up.
It's still -14 degrees today.
KIS