Unexpected hike sights I came across this afternoon

A political message emblazoned on a bridge over 

a hill stream in Tai Mo Shan Country Park

 

An ant struggling to move the body of a worm-like creature

that's about the same size as -- if not longer than -- it! 

 

A macaque monkey looks smug after stealing 

an ice cream cone from a human child! :O

 

Each time that I've gone on the Lung Mun Country Trail, I've come across unexpected sights.  The first time that I did so, the water levels of a number of the hill streams one comes across when hiking along this route were quite a bit higher than expected -- as in covering the tops of stepping stones that, ideally, should have been dry (though, thankfully not high enough to cover the elevated bridges that have been erected over the wider streams found in this area)!  

 

Happily, the second time that I hiked on this trail, conditions were noticeably drier and safer; with the major unexpected sight came in the form of caged song birds that their owner presumably had brought out along this trail for some fresh air!  But while this afternoon was the same in terms of the raging hill streams that I had encountered the first time around looking on the tame side, today's unexpected hike sights could be said to be noticeably wilder than what I came across the previous time that I had gone on this particular trail which goes from Chuen Lung village to Shing Mun Reservoir.

The first of these were messages asking CY Leung (aka the politican known as 689) to step down, whose Chinese characters are written in such a way that English readers may alternatively interpret them as reading "F.U"!  Although I've seen a number of "I want genuine universal suffrage" stickers and other pro-Umbrella Movement symbols while out hiking in Hong Kong in the past year, this actually was the first time I had seen the "CY step down" messages out in the country parks (as opposed to, say, during the July 1st protest march.

 

On a less political note: today's two other unexpected hike sights are wild in the sense that they involve wild animals carrying out acts that could be said to be on the aggressive side.  The first of these involved an ant trying to bring home a dead animal that looked to weigh more than it.  That tiny insect was struggling to do so but it sure didn't look like it was planning to give up any time soon; something that I found pretty admirable, actually! 

 

Then there was the macaque monkey pictured in the third photo from the top of this blog post.  Moments before that photo was taken, it had grabbed the ice cream cone it's shown with right out of the hand of a startled child!  To be honest, my initial reaction was along the lines of "What the hell was the child's parents thinking in allowing the kid to openly eat food in an area of Hong Kong that's famously monkey country?!"  And while I generally am not a fan of those simians that are an introduced species to the Big Lychee, I have to admit to a grudging admiration for that particular monkey for having had the inspired initiative to get itself a nice, cooling treat (which it proceeded to look to enjoy just a few feet from its former owner)! ;S