Hays Nature Preserve

One morning after breakfast, and on the way back into Huntsville, Roy, Alexa, Jennie, and I turned off the main highway onto a narrow road leading to Hays Nature Preserve. Now Roy and I had discovered this a few weeks earlier and had even explored it, although our exploration was from the vehicle, and we didn't think there was much to it. This time the three of them exited the vehicle and went walking. Shortly thereafter, either Jennie or Alexa returned gesturing wildly and when I lowered the window I was told that I had to get out and come see what they had found. Now I have an electric scooter that I keep in the back of the SUV for just such purposes as this, and I have a hoist that will lift the scooter in and out of my SUV. So, I unloaded the scooter and away I did go down the trail. Here are the pictures that I captured on the trail. Just click on the smaller picture for a larger view.

That's me operating the hoist with the remote control.

1. The trail; 2. Roy and Alexa exploring; 3. Exploring deeper; 4. Still deeper.

Butterflies were everywhere and they were landing on all of us. I got two shots of one on Jennie and when we returned to my SUV, one had hitched a ride on one of us and flew off after we were inside the SUV.

Flora but no fauna; notice the third shot which are yellow or orange mushrooms. None of us had ever seen any this color. I almost forgot: there was fauna; a very large bird flew out of the trees and over our heads but it was so fast that none of us had time to see what it was. We were beside a small river and we all guessed that it was a crane or heron. (We have sighted several blue heron in our region.)

Along the way Jennie discovered something she wanted us to see and then began to explain to Alexa and Roy what it was.

Background music: a big hit for Nat King Cole called Nature Boy