Strandfontein

We have a number of large herons in South Africa. As a rule they’re pretty shy. But for some reason yesterday morning we kept coming across Black Headed Herons that were close to the road or even had to be persuaded to move.

Then there was this mystery buzzard. Common Buzzard? Something more unusual. I dunno. Will update.

Morning flamingos. 🦩 @millar6300 @joydemillar and I went to Strandfontein and started seeing big flocks of greater flamingos straight away in the early light.

These ones are greater flamingoes - although their pink beaks are underwater. Almost a retro-80s, vapour-wave kinda thing going on with the colour scheme and the ripple patterns.

Lesser Flamingoes! I don’t think I’ve ever seen them at Strandfontein before. Plenty of the Greater Flamingoes - and we saw lots of those too. Greater Flamingoes are almost all white except for their pink beaks and wing feathers. Lesser Flamingoes like these have deep red beaks, often quite red wing-feathers, and occasionally the whole bird is a lurid pink. Manual focus on the Fujifilm XE1 with a Nikon 300mm f4 and 1.4x converter 💪 ...

Apparently I took this almost exactly ten years ago. August 7, 2010. A slightly gloomy winter’s day down at the good ol’ sewrage-works with my dad, @millar6300, relieved by the firework-brightness of these Greater Flamingos.