A fire broke out on the front slopes of Table mountain.
Fortunately the South Easter gale had subsided and they could bring the helicopters in.
The helicopters circled picking up water from a local reservoir
Category: Photography
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Bat Eared Foxes
We were privileged to see Bat Eared Foxes in the Mountain Zebra National Park. They use those big ears to detect insects which they then dig for in the dry sand.
And now the story of a failed star shoot. We were in the Mountain Zebra National Park. It is a really great park. They have just brought lions in and according to the park staff the lions are “far over there” pointing towards Graaff Rienette.
We were in a fenced camp but worryingly we have seen buck inside the fences so we are not convinced that the fences are as secure as the staff say.
Anyway, at 2 AM I go outside to take photos of the stars because the skies are really quite beautiful and bright in the dry Karoo air.
My first shot and the focus is a bit off.
Taking the advice of a wise photographer, I switch to manual focus and attempt to get sharp focus on a distant street lamp.
Then I start a third photograph setting the timer to 65 seconds.
It is at 30 seconds that a lion roars. It takes about 5 seconds for me to reallise that what I had just heard was a lion, that it might be far away but I wasn’t going to take a chance of it not being in the camp, so I raced inside the chalet and slammed the door which results in a third image which is a nice blend of the stars and the inside of the chalet.
For some odd reason, I didn’t go out again. 
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Full Eclipse
In very bad conditions I photographed the recent full eclipse. There was lots of light pollution and a lot of aerosols so I was actually quite pleased with the results. I was using a high ISO setting so a lot of grain is visible.
Oh, and for those from the northern hemisphere, you will note that the mare appear to you inverted.
A Sugarbird in the evening,
A waxbill in the morning
Flowers at midday
And the stars at night. Light pollution on the horizon.
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Clouds
I enjoy photographing clouds.
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False Bay Sunset
Photo taken from Rooi Else across False Bay.
It is call False Bay because it sometimes fooled sailors of old looking for Table Bay.
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The mystery of the floating head
I took a photograph of a Little Grebe on a water body in Vroliejkheid Nature Reserve. There was a bit of a swell, nothing much, a couple of cms maximum. I took the photo home and processed it and found that there was an unexpected head reflected in the water. How it got there is a bit of a puzzle
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Bees like Grapes
Specifically hanepoot or mascadel grapes which if left long enough become incredibly sweet. We have an active bee hive and a hanepoot vine which has produced a nice crop of grapes this season so we ended up sharing our grapes with the birds and the bees.
The bees are cape honey bees indigenous to the Western Cape.
The birds that open the berries are Common or European Starlings
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Brown Hooded Kingfisher
A beautiful bird that posed so nicely for us just outside McGregor in the Western Cape. The bird has a call similar to the Mouse Bird so when we are birding and hear the distinctive three note call, we are never quite certain which bird we are hearing. In this case the identification was positive. This species of kingfisher actually seems to prefer dry land rather than water. An image of a mouse bird is here.
