F.I.T. trail

We woke up to a beautiful day and the birds were singing. The park was pretty quiet with no major noise coming from the other campers. And we were happy to find that we had no major leaks from the tent over the course of the night so our sleeping bags were dry.

Before leaving this beautiful park we wanted to do the full hike of the F.I.T. trail. So, after breakfast we once again began to wander down the wide and well groomed paths of the trail.

There are plenty of birds in Bonnechere Park. A Robbin was the early bird on this morning; out to get his morning worm. 

We found more of the information signs hiding in the posts and we read up on the wildlife and interesting facts about the area.

There weren't too many other people on the trail. Only about 4 other couples and groups of people passed us along the way. 

I saw this mushroom that I thought was kind of different. I don't know what kind it is though. 

We came to a fence with arrows showing the direction to go in. Of course, rebels that we are, we went in the opposite direction and did this part of the trail backwards. Come to think of it, I am pretty sure that we often do trails backwards. 

There was a nice little foot bridge to walk over. 

Situated along the path are the cabins that you are able to rent from the park. Considering how close they are to the path and how many people would be traveling the trails and peeking in at you all the time, I am not sure that I would really want to rent one of these cabins. 

One of the information posts had some nifty looking circles along the bottom of it. 

At first we were leery about reaching in to the posts to get the signs out because we thought "what if there are spiders or something in there". 
But then after I thought about it for awhile I realized that these are probably opened and closed numerous times a day, so most likely nothing is gonna wanna stay in there for very long with all that activity going on all the time. And sure enough, we never did find any sort of insect in any of them.

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The trail follows along a river for a bit. There was a kayaker that passed by us. I would imagine that there are some beautiful places to see along the river from the kayak that you just can't see from the trail. 

Th reflections off the water made for some interesting scenery. It was like something out of a painting. 

There were plenty of grasshoppers to be found along the way. 

Every once in awhile there would be an opening along the side of the path where you could see the water really well. 

Some of those openings had animal and bird tracks in the mud along the shoreline. 

There were some beautiful, red, Columbine flowers lining the sides of the path in tome sections. 

And in among the Columbine were some spent  flowers of the Virgin's Bower (Clematis) plant. These two plants  made for a visually  interesting combination. 

There were also some Lily of the Valley plants with berries that were not ripe yet. 

This adorable little chipmunk peeked around a tree to say hello to us. 

The slight tinge of red on the maple leaves reminded us that whether we like it or not, it will soon be autumn. 

We finished up the trail and headed back to camp to pack up to go home. We could hear some very loud, shrill,  cries coming from the tree tops across the road from the waste management site. I could tell that there were two raptors of some sort calling to each other. In order to check it out I had to go through some thick underbrush and through some wet, muddy puddles and soggy leaves in an area that is not intended for campers to go traipsing through.  Heather was tired and didn't want to go through the water and brush. So she headed back to camp on her own and I stayed to see what kind of birds these were and to see if I could get a picture. 

I walked as quietly as I could to the base of the trees that I could see them in. As far as I can tell, they were two Red-tailed Hawks. 

They may have had a nest near by because I had heard them the day before too, so they were definitely sticking around for a reason. I spent a good 20 minutes trying to get pictures. By the time I got a couple of "not so good, but it will have to do" pictures, my shoes were wet and the mosquitoes were coming in to feast on me. But I was glad that I had gone out of my way to see them. 

At the campsite I was able to take pictures of a couple of crows yelling at each other. These two were much easier to photograph.

We packed up our tent and our gear and we headed for home. That concluded another wonderful camping and backpacking trip for us. There is nothing like getting away from it all. Can't wait to get back out there again soon!