Gurney's sugarbird

 Today at my holiday accommodation, while checking guests out, they mentioned seeing a very striking bird with a long tail and asked me what it was. I told them it was Gurney's sugarbird.  I had seen it in  there on Thursday morning. I had my Canon that day and although I took several photos, not one was a clear image of this beautiful bird. 

As I let the guests out using my gate remote. I noticed the sugarbird on the aloe blooms in The Bunker garden. Then it flew up onto a shrub. I only had my smartphone with me and usually have little to no success trying to photograph birds with it.

Surprise surprise, the images came out beautifully!

Gurney's sugarbird 

I'm linking my post to Saturday Critters with Eileen, here 

HAPPY SATURDAY TO YOU ALL

Hedges Kitties and Skabby

 Good morning dear Blogger friends. I have taken over the job of Kitty Journalist which darling Ambrose did so well for many years. I need to scroll back and see when he qualified to have his own post on my blog. LOL! I always felt bad when I got busy and would hog the laptop and he couldn't get a post up.

 Skabby is happy and well as always and the cats are doing what cats do best...

Mama and Missy asleep on my electric blanket

Chappie asleep on the velvet cushioned chair in my office

Skabby's favorite part of our daily walk is to dive into the dam

Shaking himself dry this morning, I caught him with his lip lifted and teeth exposed! 

Happy Sunday to you all

Walking with Skabby on the farm

 Dear Blogger friends. Skabby and I got out onto the farm road mid-morning today. At the dam, he dived in and I took photos. Apart from the regular geese and ibis', this time I managed to spot a Hamerkop and a Three-banded-Plover.

Hamerkop

Unmistakable with its backward -projecting crest, resembling a hammer

Three-banded plover 

Egyptian Goose

Sacred Ibis 

I'm linking to Saturday Critters with Eileen here

Happy Saturday to you all! 

June business is brisk

 Good evening dear Blogger friends. At last posting on 23 May, I thought I'd get back to blogging regularly. 

Not so...

1st June dawned, with it snow on our beautiful Drakensberg mountains, and guests poured from all over South Africa to experience this phenomena. Strange as it may seem to my friends in the USA and Canada, snow is an oddity in our country. 

This photo was taken at 5pm 1 June 2021 as the sun was setting over the Central Drakensberg. 

The entire Drakensberg mountain range was under snow that day and for several days afterwards. My personal experience that day was that Thandi and I were cleaning my two-sleeper unit, The Bunker after guests,  and prepping for incoming guests. As we travelled towards the mountains that morning, it was snowing, and we could see the mountain being sprinkled with snow, resembling icing sugar. 

Of course, the snow is HIGH up in the mountains and nowhere near any accommodation. This was a question we had to answer to several callers phoning to find out if it's snowing on accommodation patio or in the garden. The answer was always a firm "no". You can come and stay;  come and enjoy the vision of the snow on the mountains. 

Meanwhile, I have had back-to-back bookings since 31 May. 

Setting up extra beds for a young family

Thandi ...

...and I have our respective tasks 

Ready for the young family this past weekend

The snow a few days into June

The view of the mountain peaks from my large family accommodation (yesterday) 

Have a great week, everybody!