Special Saturday Critters

When I left Tanzania, I thought I'd never see critters so readily again. 

How mistaken was I? 

Just relaxing on our patio or wandering aroundthe garden, I see many critters which I, of course,  photograph. 

Firstly, Rina found a frog in the spare room. It was sitting on the carpet at the foot of the double bed. I picked it up and carried it onto the patio where I took photos before shooing it into the garden, and away from Chappie who 's fascinated by any critter.

The frog which Rina found in our guest room. If you look closely, you'll see a strand of carpet fluff on it's right shoulder

Later in our bedroom, I noticed a spider on the wall near my wardrobe. When not in use, we store the cushions for the garden set on top of this wardrobe. Since arriving here, Shadow has made this one of his favorite places to sleep. That day I was fascinated that none of the cats had noticed the spider.

The spider on the wall near my wardrobe

While wandering around the garden, Rina called me to see the strange phenomena on a log. It took me several minutes to see what she pointed out. Check out in the first image if you can see anything...

Can you see anything on this log? 

We decided we were looking at a newt

Later still, Rina spotted a grasshopper the garden bench 

Shortly afterwards, I saw Chappie staring at something on the patio. As I neared, I saw it was another grasshopper. The two grasshoppers are so similar that we think it may be the mate of the one on the garden bench.

The "bench"  grasshopper's mate! 

In my front garden, my Leonotis Leonarus is in full bloom at moment. This shrub attracts sunbirds to our garden (more about this pretty bird in next week's bird post) As I watched a wasp-like bee drank deeply from the blooms. 

A large bee on the Leonotis Leonarus

A better view of the waspish bee on the blooms

The wasp dips down under the foliage 

When we sit outdoors at night, we often see frogs again. One particular evening, we saw one hopping along the patio towards my car garage. 

Frog hopping towards my car garage

A  close-up of the frog - now on the garage floor

On the first day of our bike tour to the Cape, we stopped off at a coffee shop in a sleepy Karoo town. While Grant ordered our lunch, I stroked the resident cat. It lay quietly at our feet while we ate;  of course I took photos...

The resident cat at coffee shop on our way to the Cape last week

While on our walk to the Knyna Heads with Pete and Mart, we stopped at a tidal pool to watch the sea creatures. Of course I took photos...

Hermit crabs in a tidal pool at the Knysna Heads

I hope you've all enjoyed my first critter party in South Africa. I'm linking my post to Eileen's Saturday Critters here

HAPPY SATURDAY TO YOU ALL!