The very beautiful Impala. While the lowveld is thick with these, I never get tired of them. One of the most beautiful and graceful antelope you’ll ever see. In full panic they make astonishing leaps during their dashes for safety - taking to the air like 75kg swallows. Impala is one of the all-time most beautiful animal names. But I also like the Afrikaans, “rooibok,” - which means simply red buck. ...
Since I got the colour more or less right, I thought I’d share more pics of those busy Kgalagadi foxes from 2008.
Klipspringers. Look at the little ballet hooflets. Found this as well, while scrolling through Lightroom. I got some great footage of Klipspringers over Christmas. Now I just have to bring myself to face Davinci and edit that stuff. In the meanwhile, here’s a pic I took in 2012 at about the same place in the Karoo National Park - Klipspringerpas. These are basically the Southern African equivalent of mountain goats. The name means ‘rockjumper.’ Those dainty little hooves do great work for leaping about cliffs and boulders.
Foxes! Playing around in lightroom. The Kgalagadi sand completely defeated the auto white balance when I took this pic back in 2008. Finally managed to get a version I can live with. These Cape Foxes had a den by the road and the young ones were having great games before bedtime first thing in the morning.
This fat boy is as tranquil as ever - fastidiously washing his face. He’s taken to lounging about in the shade outside - including in flower pots with his limbs hanging out. One day he’ll let me photograph him like that.
Trinket overcome by a truly savage yawn. She at least gets to go out visiting the neighbours by her wall-top pathways.
@withoutaleaf’s birthday involved some mild outdoor style visitation plague risk in order to braai home-made paneer kebabs with much-missed friends. Perhaps not the very smartest move despite COVID tests and all. But it does give a person the strength to go on.
I’ve joined a tiny bird group to monitor the presence of birds where the Liesbeek River meets the Black River. Once a week we go out to this spot on the Black River in the morning and spend 5 minutes noting every species we can see and their numbers. Yesterday was a two kingfisher day with a trio of Pied Kingfishers fussing just on the right edge of the Liesbeek mouth and a Malachite Kingfisher I didn’t see (I was taking notes and, when I thought I saw it later, was asked if I wasn’t looking at a Morning Glory flower - I was 😂). Despite being an urban river system, it’s bursting with wildlife. ...
Balcony Birds No. 6. This one was exciting. We’re almost positive this is a juvenile Rufous-Breasted Sparrowhawk. It makes sense that it would be coming around here trying to murder our sparrows. These kinds of hawks are built for manoeuvrability - they can zip between the branches at speed to surprise perching birds. Aparna spotted this through the window and I was lucky enough to grab some hand-held, unstabilised pics - and got a few decently sharp ones. Lightroom could only partially compensate for the heavy purple fringing due to the older teleconverter dealing with the intense contrast against the sky. ...
A spiky plant that I know not.