This was taken not far from the house two RATPOWs ago. This wildflower grows everywhere near my brother-in-law’s farm. Unfortunately, I don’t know the name of it or the name of the beetle on it. Not that many trees on the high veld, but there are plenty of wildflowers.
In Afrikaans, the slang [...]
Camels were first introduced into Australia from the Canary Islands in 1840. Subsequently an estimated 12,000 camels were imported and ultimately released into the wild when road and rail transport resumed the camel’s role as a means of carrying freight. A 2001 survey by the Northern Territory Parks & Wildlife Commission has estimated [...]
This was taken not long after the previous RATPOW. The cloud in my previous picture started dumping rain just as the sun was setting. This was taken in NW Mpumalanga province of South Africa, out in the sticks, just after Christmas 2005. It is common at this location in the highveld to [...]
In the Sydney Botanical Gardens, you’ll see Grey-headed Flying foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) hanging upside down from the branches with their leathery wings wrapped around their bodies. Also called the Grey-headed Fruit Bat, the Grey-headed Flying-fox is a native Australian bat. The bats settled in the Gardens many years ago, probably because much of [...]
The clouds on the highveld seem just a bit closer to the ground and look more crisp and distinct than they do anywhere else I’ve been. I think this is due to the lack of pollution and the elevation. But I never get tired there of looking up at what is happening, as [...]
Here’s another flap. I had the big zoom on a lot of the time, but these birds are very skittish! I really needed to be more patient in order to get a better picture. For those interested, the latin name for this bird is Euplectes progne and it is a type of [...]
Over the holidays Leo and I were in South Africa visiting her brother and his family. They live on the highveld in the province of Mpumalanga SE of Johannesburg. The word “veld” (pronounced “felt”) literally means “field,” but when one refers to a field one usually means just a few acres, and when [...]
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I love it when Christmas decorations stay up for weeks after Christmas! I was visiting some dear friends last week and snapped this shot of their tree which was still up. Of course, it was too dark to take a sharp one without [...]