We went to Vrolijkheid this last weekend and were stunned by the spring flowers. The birding was not great, but we got some lovely pictures none the less.
Now for the birds
Coot feeding time.
Grebe and gone
And a clicking stream frog.
And a large ant. The Afrikaans name is “balbyter” literally ball biter.
A visit to the Stellenbosch University Botanical Gardens provided some stunning flowers to be photographed.
Recently I found that most creative people have a portfolio so I decided it was time I created a brag page so here we go.
I am a generalist or less politely a jack of all trades. Whichever title you want to use it means I am curious about practically anything so to save you from browsing through the entire website, I will provide a short summary. So here goes
Painting – oil, acrylics and pastels. Acrylic first
Oil
Pastels
Charcoal
Photography – photograph anything that takes my fancy, flowers, sunsets, stars, landscapes and birds.
A glacial pavement just outside Nieuwoudtville when we were part of Pangea.
And then there are the other things
Baking
Bee keeping. Bees Bearding a hive to keep it cool
Hiking
Renovating a house in Riviersonderend
We went to the Citrusdal Baths in September 2023 and we got some lovely photographs.
Sunset on our first evening there – the Cederberg Mountains in their evening finery
I was all set up to take photos of the stars at 10 PM. And the clouds rolled in. In disgust I went to bed. At 2 AM answering a call of nature I looked outside and found that the clouds had cleared and this was the view. In a pair or shorts and an open tee shirt I braved the 5 degree cold to take a series of photos, this one being the best.
Coral trees are just so photogenic
And not forgetting the nastutians
And a bit of macro photography to finish up.
One of our neighbours has this amazing tree which, in early summer breaks out in white blossoms. The whole tree gets covered.
Enjoy the sight of a Snow in Summer tree
The west coast of South Africa is a dry semi-desert region with an average rainfall of 280 mm (12″). For most of the years the vegetation is low scrub and thorn bushes with patches of dry dusty ground. In August after the winter rains things change dramatically. The flower come out in raging colours. This display lasts three months and by the end of October the flowers are gone and the dry dusty veld is left.
We drove up to Langebaan in mid August after good winter rains and enjoyed the glory of the flowers
The flowers spread across all the open ground and wild profusion. If you drive through quickly you only see the carpet of flowers. If however you stop and look, there is a wealth of beautiful flowers hidden within the showy flash of white, yellow and orange.
Once in about a decade the March Flowers or Maartblomme rise out of the harsh Tankwa Karoo soil and bring colour and life to the dry and harsh landscape. We were fortunate to make the 5 hour trip from Cape Town to Nieuwoudtville to see them.
The flowers seem to congregate in patches as you can see from this picture.
The flowers put out a spike covered by
