Forty years ago on my River Drive stoep in Westville, a Narina Trogon landed on just the right branch on the tree straight in front of me.
Same thing again this morning in Mtunzini.
Lovely.
~~oo0oo~~
Today I was happy to spot a Lesser Honeyguide and a Golden-tailed Woodpecker in that tree. And again. And again.
Then I realised it was a mother and daughter! The Woodpecker was feeding the Honeyguide.
Roberts says the Scaly-throated usually parasitises the Golden-tailed Woodpecker, so that’s probably what it was: A juvenile Scaly-throated. I’ve been hearing both Honeyguides, but more of the Scaly-throated.
~~oo0oo~~
Latest is a pair of Grey Waxbills. Hoping to see their nuptial dance!
– I just got a peek of her scarlet bloomers –
A couple weeks later I got a few blurry shots of a Trogon pair against the harsh light. My lovely little compact zoom Canon sx740hs is not good at focusing where I want it to. My photography got one admiring comment from an envious deskundige, who chirped, “Looks like one of my favorite branches that. I like the way it keeps the bird modest and doesn’t allow full frontal exposure.”
When the male did pose full-frontal, my modest lil Canon decided to focus on a tree trunk, left-edge!
I got a wifi-enabled camera! My cellphone can now operate the camera remotely! I am going to set it up on a tripod and sit somewhere comfortable and take pictures of unwitting birds. No, man! Feathered ones.
Having this would also have been handy to see what the hyenas and bushpigs were doing outside our hut late at night last time we were in Mfolosi, and I always want to know what’s that snuffling around my tent when camping.
So now I finally have a camera I can set up on a tripod and take pics from my cellphone. Being a cheapskate I waited till I could do it with a cheap camera – a Canon Powershot SX620HS. It’s a tiny little compact camera so I can carry it everywhere, the biggest advantage it has over the cellphone camera is 25X optical zoom.
So now I got the camera aiming at the birdbath waiting for the first exciting shot.
Hmm, getting the camera and phone to talk to each other has taken way longer than I thought. While I was sukkeling, two spectacled weavers, a golden-rumped tinker, an olive sunbird, two brown-hooded kingfishers, a fork-tailed drongo and a speckled mousebird hopped on and grinned at me. Now that I’m rigged up, nothing so far!
Ons sal sien what comes of this! Maybe word got out in the bird world that the binocular pervert who always stares at them while they’re bathing now has a camera? This Red-capped Robin-chat showed what she thought of me at the other birdbath. And this was while I was still shooting from long range!
Once I got the setup going, I soon noticed another small problem: My attention span! This is not really a sport for someone who hops from twig to twig and makes frequent forays to the fridge and/or the kettle. One olive sunbird has been spotted and photographed, small and blurry; moving fast and olive-greenish against an olive-greenish backdrop. Meantime various ostriches and vultures might have taken gulps while my attention was elsewhere. I wouldn’t know.
I can see I need auto-shoot with a movement detector so I can leave it and go to sleep and then see what happened in my absence. And so the drive for ever-more expensive equipment starts!
Other challenges: Battery life! After waiting a few hours the whole setup suddenly switches off: “Re-charge Battery” it commands. And mine only operates with wifi – I’ll need bluetooth to be able to do this in the wild, far from wifi.
So whenever you see a great bird picture, take your hat off to the patience, perseverance, skill and equipment required to get those shots!
I now remember the stories Neville Brickell used to tell me about how he got his bird pics. Something along these lines: He would find a spot where his target bird was likely to be. He would give a big bag of the right seed or feed to someone living nearby and ask them to put a handful out every day for a few weeks. He would set up a hide in a good position and place likely perches with good backgrounds. Later he would return, enter the hide and wait. If all went to plan he would get his picture! His resident feeder would be rewarded for that ultimate success so he had a reason to keep up the feeding. A lot of work and patience! Of course, he also sometimes caught birds and photographed them in cages with controlled light and backgrounds.
~~oo0oo~~
I finally started getting a few fun pics – better anyway than I could get with my little camera from my stoep 30m away. And I could play with the images:
– purple-crested turaco –
and I could zoom in:
Once when I was setting up, this Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird landed a metre away and asked What You Doin’? So I shot him right there, free-hand.
Now that I’ve sold my home and am wandering around, I really need to get going on an alternative system. Fingers crossed. One day . .
Update: I picked Lee Ouzman’s brain and our last thought was Get Another Cellphone and let them talk to each other. So for now I think that’s what I’ll do. I’ll need to mount one on my Manfrotto tripod . . .
On our way to Riebeeck Kasteel I phoned ahead to ask Lang Dawid how we’d find him when we got there. ‘Just drive in, I’ll see you,’ he said. As I parked under a tree next to the Groot Kerk I got a call: ‘Look right,’ he said.
And there was a lang skraal athletic figure waving at us from outside his new cottage. Above is his view of the kerk from his stoep. From the steeple the dominee can see right into his bachelor bedroom. Complaints may follow.
Dave very kindly hosted me and daughter Jess on our travels in his new cottage he has built on the grounds of his boet William and wife Mary’s lovely home which doubles as their photographic studio and professional printing business. Check out their portfolios on that website – stunning.
Some lekker eating joints in the dorpie. From this table you can see Dave’s cottage right in the middle, next to his boet’s home and studio.
Dave is an accomplished birder and bird photographer. Not only has he exceeded my forty year count in far fewer years (not that I count, of course), but he has a photo of every one of his 650-odd birds recorded. With my 620-odd tally (not that I count, of course), you only have my word. We met other weird okes talking shutter speeds, ISO, length of your equipment, whimbrels and curlews. Or was it curlew sandpipers?
– spotted a spotted moth in Dave’s garden –
And wow! Here’s a picture Mary took of that same view of the kerk from their home:
God was more besig in the skies on her day.
Jess, I said as we drove off after a lovely kuier, Dave is a Springbok canoeist and he was on the trip I went on when we kayak’d the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Oh, says Jess. Also, Dave’s birthday is the same as mine, April Fools Day. NO WAY, DAD!! SERIOUSLY!? THAT’S SO COOL! says my Jess. I’m lucky, I can still impress my child.
A frog he would a-wooing go, Heigh ho! says Rowley, A frog he would a-wooing go, Whether his mother would let him or no. With a rowley, powley*, gammon, and spinach, Heigh ho! says Anthony Rowley.
Like all good nursery rhymes, they all came to a bloody end. Dead, the lot of them, by the end of the rhyme. And they’re for children, of course, so there’s mention of spinach! See all the words here.
Aitch and I enjoyed some lovely frogging outings in our courting days and pre-children days. Sometimes with Barry & Lyn Porter at their three main ‘patches,’ Hella Hella (Game Valley Estates), inland of Port Shepstone (the litchi farm) and Betty’s Bay (which Barry’s father donated to the nation for a nature reserve), but the two of us ‘frogged’ all over the place, filling in data for the frog atlas by ADU at UCT’s Fitztitute. We had a lot of fun doing that. We felt lucky, we had an early GPS given to me by friend Larry in Ohio.
– me and Barry frogging inland of Port Shepstone on ‘the litchi farm’ –
Top ‘feature’ pic: A red-banded Rubber Frog I caught in me underpants on Malachite Camp – a shortlived venture in Zululand by the Mala Mala crowd. Here’s the frog again, and the tuft he was calling in:
Sonderbroek frogging as sometimes the vlei was quite deep. Whistling catcalls would emanate from the Landrover. That woman!
Good photographers have presence of mind. I’d like more of that stuff.
Last night I leaned back in my office chair – director’s or boss’ chair deluxe, high-back, padded armrests – luxuriously and started to put my feet up on my imbuia wood desk. The smooth motion didn’t stop there, I kept going backwards, the high-back cushioned my head as I crashed, the wheels of the chair caught under the desk, sending a full glass of red wine and a plate of fine cordon curried mutton pie and tomato sauce crashing to the tiled floor, along with the PC monitor and my drone remote control.
Fokop. Chair horizontal, desk at 45 degrees, dramatic grape blood and tomato blood on the floor, legs in the air, same air blue with profanity.
A photographer would have taken a great picture, especially as the ‘blood’ oozed towards my collection of eleven Okavango Delta books I’d gathered together as I’m getting rid of my library.
I very boringly tidied the broken glass and ceramic, mopped the red wine, re-assembled the scattered shrapnel and then thought: Damn! A picture would have been good.
I sort of re-staged it this morning to show how the chair’s wheeled legs tipped up the old desk on the right.
Spring birding has been great. Some poor but fun pics of what’s been buzzing about.
– Cardinal Woodpecker – only one, but I inserted him three more times using FastStone –– three birds in one shot! – top Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird, Spectacled Weaver and female Black Cuckooshrike bottom – I added in a clearer pic of the cuckooshrike –– Yellow-bellied Greenbul – left one is same bird added in (a bit small!) – insert was nearby – there were three of them –
– the Lodders came to visit and Louis casually shot a Grey Waxbill while we were talking – see in the inset how she flashed her scarlet rump lingerie at Louis –
Below: A Pegesimallus robber fly; The tail hanging down from the branch? A vervet monkey; Temnora marginata (a sphinx moth); Ceryx fulvescens (yellow sleeved maiden moth); and – the white moth possibly a citrus looper? Thanks, iNaturalist.org for help with identification.
– birdbath GIFs of a Streaky-headed Seedeater and a Thick-billed Weaver – told you poor pics –
The female Black Cuckooshrike returned and I got a better view. Pics are poor as I took them through my dirty window rather than open up and spook her. One bird, I compiled this montage with FastStone again.
What’s that at the birdbath? Luckily the camera is on the tripod nearby and I manage to get a few shots. Ah! An Ashy Flycatcher, the old Blue-Grey Flycatcher, Muscipapa caerulescens. Often seen before, but never in my garden.
As he leaves he calls, and I have my mystery bird that I’ve been hearing, ‘knew that I knew,’ but couldn’t identify. Nailed that call down.
That was yesterday. Today he flew round and round my garden to the tops of all the trees, calling continuously. A piercing call for such a little fella.
Lang Dawid came to visit after decades in the hinterland. Always very organised, he sent bearers ahead of his arrival bearing two lists: Ten new birds he wanted to see; and Three old bullets he wanted to see.
We delivered thirty percent of his DD bird list: Desperately Desired: A Red-capped Robin-Chat, A White-eared Barbet and a Terrestrial Brownbul;
– Dave Walker’s pics –
Forty percent if you count the bonus male Tambourine Dove that landed in a patch of sunlight, a photographic lifer for Dave.
– Dave’s dove –
All this thanks to Crispin Hemson showing us his special patch, Pigeon Valley in urban Durban. Talk about Guru Guiding! with his local knowledge, depth, anecdotes, asides and wandering all over, on the ground and in our minds. And his long-earned exalted status in this forest even allowed us to avoid arrest while climbing through a hole in the fence like naughty truant schoolboys. Whatta lovely man.
– Crispin scans, Dave holds his bazooka at the ready – turn a blind eye to the bottom left corner –
Then Dave and I retreated home to my patch in the Palmiet valley, where Tommy had cleaned up, readied the cottage for Dave’s stay and started a braai fire. Spot on, Tom!
We beat his thirty percent bird score when one hundred percent of Dave’s list of old paddling mates arrived. Like homing pigeons, Allie, Charlie and Rip zoomed in. So I had four high-speed paddlers in their day on my stoep, race winners and provincial and national colours galore. We scared off any birds that might have been in the vicinity (feathered or human), but had a wonderful afternoon nevertheless, with lots of laughs.
After they left, Dave and I had braai meat for supper; This morning we had braai meat for breakfast and he was off after a fun-filled 24 hours. I sat down to polish the breakfast remains and another cup of coffee and as a bonus, a female Tambourine Dove landed on my birdbath:
– not Dave’s camera –
A tragic consequence of their visit was an audit of my booze stocks the next day. Where before they’d have plundered, quaffed, burped and depleted, this time I ended up with more than I’d started with. How the thirsty have fallen!
~~oo0oo~~
Dave's camera equipment is impressive: - a Canon EOS 7D Mk2 body; - a 500mm telephoto lens; - a 70-200mm lens.
His main aim is getting a pic of every bird he sees. He shot his 530th yesterday here in Pigeon Valley. So he chases all over Southern Africa ticking off his ‘desired list.’ A magic, never-ending quest: there’ll always be another bird to find; there’ll always be a better picture to try for.
Here’s an adventure Dave and I shared back when we were bachelors, not ballies. That time it was beer n boobs, not birds n ballies.
~~oo0oo~~
– more Dave pics from behind the boerewors curtain –
Flower beds, not sleeping beds. Not that I actually have any flower beds in my jungle but just to say . . none in my bed. Just an excuse to use beds n bugs in a sentence.
– paradise –
bug being eaten
So what are bugs? Well, it depends. Hemiptera or true bugs are an order of 80 000 insect species such as cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers and shield bugs. They range in size from 1 mm to around 15 cm. Many insects commonly known as “bugs”, especially in American English, belong to other orders; for example, the ‘lovebug’ is a fly; the ‘May bug’ and ‘ladybug’ are beetles. wikipedia
Again, I must add their identifications once I get around to it.
There been herds o’ butterflies mooching through my garden lately. I been shooting them, but still they come. So I thought I’d post some of those I shot for the enjoyment of them that are fond of the lil guys. Like me.
Poetry: a flutter of butterflies fluttered by *copyright*
blue pansycitrus swallowtailpainted ladybelenoisdark blue pansygaudy commodorecommon diadembush brown
I’ve posted them – and many other creatures and plants – on iNaturalist.org here.
~~~oo0oo~~~
“I been shooting them, but still they come,” is me misquoting from a book I read long ago, “The Man-Eaters of Tsavo.”** It told of settlers living in early Kenya who planted citrus trees. The elephants in that dry country loved them and they shot them and shot them, “but still they came.” Aren’t we humans delightful?
** which man-eater story, incidentally I recommend one takes with a huge pinch of salt. I don’t think lions behave that way, and I don’t think humans behave that way. But it sold like hot cakes, films were made, and it was imitated and frauds were perpetuated on its wave of success (at least one book had that title but the stories inside had nothing to do with the title!).
~~oo0oo~~
I have learnt, in trying to emulate another, more famous Swanepoel with a butterfly net, that catching these flitters aint easy! So its more stalk and click than stalk and catch.
One of the world’s most popular nature apps, iNaturalist helps you identify the plants and animals around you. Get connected with a community of over a million scientists and naturalists who can help you learn more about nature! What’s more, by recording and sharing your observations, you’ll create research quality data for scientists working to better understand and protect nature. iNaturalist is a joint initiative by the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society.
tiny groundcovermaybe Carissa spinarum?moth eggs -> caterpillars– Suncana ID’d the tiny moth eggs (ca.1mm width) and caterpillars as Saturnidae, probly Wahlberg’s Emperors –
And another of our naturalists, Suncana, was busy as ever, spotting new and fascinating things:
– Suncana Bradley’s latest –
While Roger and Rory shot more birds:
– Roger Hogg caught a Crowned Hornbill catching a Common Wolf Snake –– Roger Hogg and Rory O’Connor here in the Palmiet valley – Athol Marchant in the Drakensberg –
~~~oo0oo~~~
This “emperor moth” from Cowies Hill wasn’t. Turns out iNaturalist says it’s a Giant Silkworm Moth. Genus Lobobunaea. Beauty, but does it belong in our valley?!
Palmiet Nature Reserve is ready for Spring! We’ve had a cold winter, some early rain, wind storms and today a hot ‘Berg wind.’ Nature lovers in the Palmiet Rangers group have been spotting all sorts of interesting life in our valley.
– Me Hadeda Ibis, Helen Woolly-necked Stork, Roger Hogg Purple-crested Turaco, Roger Hogg Hadeda Ibis –– Louis Lodder dead Red-backed Mannikin, Roger Hogg Black-bellied Starling, Rory O’Connor Crowned Eagle, me, Hadeda Ibis –– Roger Hogg’s Klaas’ Cuckoo and Green Wood-hoopoe –– Dave James Wahlberg’s Emperor moth, Warren Friedman Tricalysia lanceolata, Gail Robinson caterpillar on Deinbollia, Lellos ?Grey-headed Sparrow, Taylors ?Leptopelis tree frog in arum lily –
Then some Palmetians went to Roosfontein and shot a Nightjar!
– Fiery-Necked Nightjar Caprimulgus pectoralis – on the nest –
Meantime, Pigeon Valley in Glenwood has also been busy, with ‘Friends of PV’ honcho Crispin Hemson keeping us all up-to-date about his patch as always:
– Crispin Hemson Little Bee-eaters, Pin-tailed Whydah, Clivia flowers; Steve Woodhall Spotted Eagle Owl –
~~~oo0oo~~~
Oh, and babies! I forgot about the babies. When Spring springs, babies pop out . . Warren Friedman is the host daddy to these two broods. And the videographer.
Palmiet neighbour Roger Hogg takes bird photography to amazing heights. We are so happy to receive his regular contributions to our little Palmiet Rangers whatsapp group.
This week he sent three stunning additions:
– female black cuckooshrike – – dark-backed weaver –
Jupiter and Saturn below the full moon put on a special show. A whatsapp message from an old schoolfriend sent me outside to take a picture, but the moon was too bright for my camera to deal with. Hence the annotated internet picture.
We’ve been having such beautiful skies – night and day – that I added some recent daytime skies.
. . and some birdbath pics:
– Red-winged Starlings, Laughing Dove, Red-eyed Dove – and the White-browed Scrub Robin was a first for Elston Place –
~~oo0oo~~
and just for good measure, some beaut pics from neighbours in the valley:
