Another weekend, another long trail race for Kim.

This time, we were back at Wilson Lake in central Kansas for a 50K race. Kim was mainly using it as a training run for a 100K race later this fall, but still managed to finish 3rd among women. It didn’t look like a particularly enjoyable training run to me (hot and humid), but that’s probably why I take photos for fun and she runs crazy long distances. I think we were both satisfied with the results of the day as we drove home, though she seemed a little more fatigued for whatever reason.

The race started after sunrise, so by the time Kim and the other runners headed off into the humidity and hills, the light was already a little too bright for good photos. I hung out and watched World Cup soccer on my phone for a while. A few hours later, some thin clouds appeared and provided nice diffused light for close-up photos. It seemed silly not to take advantage of that.

The breeze was just a little stronger than I wanted for wildflower photography and not quite strong enough to make the runners happy. The runners had to live with it, but I had a mitigation strategy. I headed for some rock outcroppings, figuring that at least the rocks (and anything sitting on them) wouldn’t be waving around in the wind.

While walking toward the rocks, I came across flowers and insects that were a little tricky, but not impossible to photograph in a breeze. It was fun being enough south of my usual prairies to see some different species – as well as a lot of familiar ones in a different setting. The trick, of course, is to know which species are the same as the ones I know and which are just similar enough to fool me.

I’ve been to Wilson Lake often enough in recent years that I’m starting to get familiar with the species at the site. Of course, that also puts me in that realm of ‘knowing enough to be dangerous.” I won’t be offended by any corrections made to my tentative identifications in this post.

I didn’t wander too far from the aid station because I wanted to be sure I was on duty when Kim came by for ice, water, food, etc. The closest rock outcroppings were just off one of the roads around the lake. That was fine except that I could feel the eyes of drivers on me as I laid prone on the ground, trying to photograph ants, tiger beetles, and other friends. I tried to move enough to show passersby I wasn’t dead, just eccentric.

My biggest success of the day was that I finally found and photographed the collared lizards Kim sees regularly but I’d not yet found during our Wilson Lake trips. I’m not sure why this was the day, but once I saw the first one, I saw quite a few. Most of the time, of course, I’d spot them because they were scurrying away and diving under rocks. Fortunately, Kim was running for a long time and I had plenty of time to wait them out. There were several instances when I just set up my camera near where I’d seen a lizard dive into cover. Then I sat patiently until it emerged back into the light.

I took a lot of lizard photos. Who knows when I’ll see another collared lizard, after all? They’re sure not around my neighborhood at home.

As I walked through the prairie, grasshoppers flew like popping popcorn away from my feet and cicadas buzzed loudly from perches and while escaping my approach. As always, most didn’t stick around to be photographed, but because my heart is true and I have a friendly face, a few allowed me a few moments with them. Then they promptly fled for their lives.

By the time Kim finished running, I was hot, sweaty, and ready to go home. So was Kim, I guess. The cicadas, grasshoppers and sphinx moths seemed unfazed. We left them to carry on without us.