Spring keeps me a little more in my hiking boots than my jogging shoes. Even though I take my camera with me when I jog, I sometimes have to go where the flowers are. In this case it was Harbison State Forest in Northwest Columbia. It did not disappoint on the bird or the wildflower side. Plenty of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Red-eyed Vireos, Cardinals, Titmice, Louisiana Waterthrough, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Red-bellied and Pileated Woodpeckers, Brown-thrashers and Towhees scratching through the bushes. The wildflowers were a bigger treat with these Houstonia Caelurea (Bluets or Quaker Ladies) growing in abundance on the dirt road leading into the forest. You mainly see these in the mountains while their cousin, houstonia purpurea, grows down here. It's more of a purple 4 petalled flower while the one pictured is a sky blue. Other wildflowers were Wood Anemones, Cinquefoil, Buttercup, Violet Wood Sorrell, Bird's-foot Violet, Rattlesnake Weed, Pinxter Flower (Pink Azalea), Hawthorne, Blue-eyed Grass, Bittercress, Atamasco Lily and False Garlic.
There are many trails in the Forest and I always take the Eagle Trail, mainly because it's off limits to mountain bikers, unlike the rest of them. I may go out tomorrow and take the trail that goes by the Broad River. This one today sure produced a lot. The trees haven't filled in yet and there were a lot of Dogwood and several of the beautiful Pink Azalea trees forming the understory. A lot of the Bluets and Buttercups were by the small streams that you can get to by the trails or when they cross the dirt road. You don't have to walk far to just sit down and get lost in the beauty of things.
toadshade
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