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
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
I love the adaptability of charcoal.
The tactile experience is what is best though.
A scarab investigating my fingers.
My late friend Arno and his dog. I battled to get Arno to look like himself, but the dog was easy. And yes, the dog only had one front leg, I am not doing an AI stunt.
Some years ago, I was travelling though the Free State province of South Africa and came across rocks that had round lumps on them. Some were complete, others were broken. I found one possible explanation on Atlas Obscura – concretation. The images on Atlas Obscura are far larger than those I found and are not attached to larger rocks as mine are.
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.
Some years ago my wife and I found a tiny insect. I photographed it (of course and posted it to iNaturalist and it was identified as a Planthopper. You can get an idea of how small the insect is by the arm hairs surrounding it. I ignored the dark thing on the back of the insect and I forgot about the observation. Two days ago someone saw my photo, took one look at the dark thing on the back of the insect and identified it as a wasp larvae.
I have been trying to get clouds to look good using stop motion photography. This is the first time I have gotten reasonable results. I just forgot to level the camera. Next time!
On special occasions, the Council switches on huge spot lights and lights the front face of Table mountain. Tonight is one of those nights.
Riviersonderend is a small town on the freeway between Cape Town and Gqeberha (formerly known as Port Elizabeth). The town was founded in 1922 and the architecture of some of the oldest buildings is Art Deco. The supermarket on the main road is one such building. It is not in very good state, but with a bit of judicious cropping, the beauty of the architecture stands out.
My house in Riviersonderend is a blend of Art Deco ship architecture and Cape Dutch architecture. The builders built according to Art Deco form, then pivoted to Cape Dutch Architecture with the small gable at the top of the square front.
I went out to try out a new lens for my camera and got this image of Lion’s Head with Scorpio setting head first.
Click the image for best viewing.
