Singing in the bath

Now that I’ve started paying close attention to what is going on in our garden, I’m always amazed at the interesting things I see. For a while now I have been trying to take some photos of the Sunbirds that live in our garden. I’m pretty sure they live here, because the whole day I […]

A short story of two White-eyes and a spider

A couple of days ago I was standing on our deck in the late afternoon, watching the sun go down. I saw something fluttering near the garden wall. Hoping that it was the sunbirds I’d been trying to get photos of, I rushed inside to get a camera. It wasn’t the sunbirds after all, but […]

Platform timeshare

We have a children’s jungle gym (mainly constructed from wood and wooden poles) in our garden, that has been featured in several of my photos of birds. It is close to our kitchen door, and if birds land on it, I can usually get a good clear shot. It has also always been Lucy’s (the […]

A pair of Hadedas instead

So no guinea fowl photos, but I managed to capture this pair of Hadeda (or Hadada) Ibis instead. These are large birds which occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Their common name comes from their loud, very distinctive haa-haa-haa-de-dah call. Read more on Wikipedia . . . These are interesting rather than pretty birds, but I find […]

The tale of the Delicious Monsters* and the unfurling fronds

*Important Note: The plant I refer to as a “Delicious Monster” has since been identified by Sarie Joubert and Dewald Louw (click on their names to read their comments) as being a Philodendron which Dewald says is a poisonous plant and should NOT be eaten! My thanks to Sarie and Dewald for this correction. I […]

Last sunset of 2010

We had a very quiet New Year’s celebration at home. Just a braai (South African word for a barbecue) out on our deck. Just us and the dog, and the cat, and the frogs, and the moths . . . and the mosquitoes. And probably a spider or two . . Although we don’t have […]

The bane of Lucy’s life

I haven’t had the energy to write much this week. So today is another photo day. The little bird below (a Fiscal or Common Shrike) is the bane of our cat’s life. It lives in a tree in our front garden, and often Lucy just needs to set a paw outside in the front, and […]

Preening Doves

Yesterday afternoon we had a couple of drops of rain. This pair of doves felt that this warranted half an hour of preening to get their feathers all dry and in place again. I hadn’t realised until I started taking photographs of them how pretty their feathers are. (You can click on any of the […]

Photo day: Macro photography

Yes, another photo day . . . As I get further into my “migraine season” you’re probably going to be seeing more of these. It will get more difficult for me to concentrate and write entertaining posts. Also, I am trying to develop my photographic skills, and feel compelled to do something with the better […]

Photo day: In Our Garden

After talking about the neighbourhood gardens the other day, I decided to take a look at what flowers were growing in our garden. The drought of the last couple of years has really given our garden a knock, as we haven’t been allowed to water our garden at all. The plants left standing are mostly […]