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.
A lunar eclipse happened some time back. The images show Lion’s Head and the night hikers lamps. Lions Head is part of the Table Mountain National Park. Lion’s head is a popular hike and is done regularly at night especially when there is an interesting astronomical event happening as in the images below.
This post is not really for the faint hearted. Impaled dead reptiles feature.
In South Africa we have a small bird of prey called the Southern Fiscal. Note the hooked beak.
The bird gets its colloquial name Jackie Hangman from its habit of hanging its captured prey on thorns. The following picture is of a small Common Slug Eater that has been hung out in a lemon tree by a Jackie Hanger.
We went to the Tankwa National Park for a birding outing. The Tankwa is in what is called the Arid Succulent Karoo. With an average of 15 cm (6″) rainfall per annum the area is dry and water is scarce but the animals, birds, reptiles and plants survive in surprising numbers. This is the second time we have been to Tankwa. Our previous visit is documented here.
This is the view from the front of the chalet looking out towards Sutherland where the South African Large Telescope is housed.
Because of the dust, sunrises are colourful.
The stars are beautiful but light pollution is ubiquitous. That is Cape Town in the distance – about 200 km as the crow flies.
There having been a very wet winter, the only major dam in the reserve was overflowing. We never did identify that bird.
Birds tend to be small and really difficult to photograph.
A mouse warming itself in the early morning sun.
A Spiny Agama suns itself on a rock.
A Black Backed Jackal surveys the world.
Gazanias grow where there is a little more water available.
Where there was once water. A few centimetres of rain causes wash aways an pools like this one.
This is a Sutherlandia commonly called a Cancer Bush, supposedly helps treat cancer. No basis for this claim that I know of.
This plant is still unidentified, it just grows out of the thin soil and produces these beautiful flowers.
During a visit to Intaka Bird Sanctuary we were treated to the sight of white breasted cormorants basking in the sun and in one case, heading out of the district.
We had a disturbance at 4 am which hurled me out of bed. Of course the camera went along. Just in case. There was a full moon just setting over Lions Head. Not a brilliant image, but fun anyway.
The Orange River Canyon does a sharp turn and the resultant spur of rock is called arrow point. This part of the canyon is in hot dry lands where the rainfall is typically 160 mm per annum.
Intaka Island is a wetland and bird sanctuary resulting from a requirement to preserve an existing wetland and provide water purification. You can see the website here: We recently visited the sanctuary and enjoyed the peace and serenity offered by the place despite being in the middle of a built up area of Cape Town.
A White Breasted Cormorant posing for usBlack Capped Night HeronRed Eyed Dove – morning ablutionsEgyptian Geese chicksA cormorant leaving the district rapidly.
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.
