Walking in the Portuguese countryside guarantees animal sightings of the friendly kind, with the occasional grumpy guard dog. We usually see more animals than people, and the curious stares we get from the local creatures sometimes border on the comical. Ice the Dog gets the credit for that.
I wanted to dedicate this post entirely to the animals we encountered on our Trilho da Nascente do Rio Leça (“Trail of the source of the Leça River”) last month, but I changed the title to a more generic one after I threw in a couple of photos of me that Paulo took, along with lots of Ice. As you can see, he follows me everywhere I go, even if it makes no sense.
The trail was full of creature bystanders, some more camera shy than others. Thankfully Ice prefers to stare for a bit then move on, but when it comes to dogs he lacks impulse control. He’s still an adolescent, though, one day he’ll figure out not every dog wants to play. The Neighbourhood Watchdogs take their duties very seriously.
Between the pigeon release and the delightful discovery of this stone picnic table built directly over a diverted stream, we really lucked out that day.
I can’t believe January passed so quickly. It’s a long month and the worst one for weather (we had flooding in the early part of January), but the second half was mild and it was easy to be outdoors.
{ More photos in the album. }
January 16, 2016
Album: Nascente Rio Leça
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