Autumn Saturday Critters around Marquard

I always worry that I may not have critters to post on Eileen's Critter Party which she kindly hosts every Saturday. But when I look at my photos, I often find something flying or crawling around on the screen! 

While photographing the cosmos along the road last week, I noticed several butterflies. They didn't stop long enough for me to capture them on camera. However, when I downloaded this photo, I saw I had caught one above the blooms! 

At the time I also photographed the blackjacks in between the cosmos 

Over the Easter Weekend, my friend's husband, who'd recently renewed his flying licence flew over town for several hours. 

We knew from his wife how thrilled he was at having a license again and cheered every time he flew over our house! 

Someone had a lot of fun last weekend! 

And no post on critters is complete without the ubequitous bird! Thrush in our white-stinkwood tree (note the berries which are attracting all manner of birds at this time of the year!)

I'm linking to Saturday Critters here

Happy Saturday to you all! 

Last birding in Mwadui

This is the last post about our birding in Mwadui. It was actually the very last day we were in Mwadui - Grant had handed over to the new Contracts Manager, and came home. We got into the car and went out to the bush, birding...

The first bird we saw was a Steel Blue Whydah. It wasn't a lifer as we'd seen it the year before. But boy, it was special! 

Steel blue Whydah

I couldn't avoid the blade of grass between my camera and the Steel Blue Whydah

Eventually the bird flew up into a tree and I managed a better photo! 

Southern Red Bishop

Grey-headed Kingfisher

Laughing Dove

Blue-capped Cordon-bleu (Male) 

While watching and photographing the Cordon-Bleu above, I heard a constant tap-tap-tapping. Focusing on the direction of the sound, I saw a woodpecker hard at work. 

Cardinal Woodpecker

Several blurry photos later (because of the rapid movement of the woodpecker's head against the tree trunk) I managed a beautifully clear shot

We were thrilled to have a last look at the Variable Sunbird

A Spurwing Goose perched high up in a dead tree bids us a final farewell! 

Just further along the road we stopped to view a pretty LBJ (Little Brown Job) singing lustily in a tree nearby. 

LBJ... 

...perhaps Rattling Cisticola

On the way back to the mine, we stopped to watch and listen to an LBJ perched high on a branch near the road. 

A Rattling Cisticola

As we approached the airstrip, Grant pointed to a large bird on the side of the road. It was a Bateleur and it was eating something. Although I took several photos, we never established what its meal was. 

Bateleur (Male) enjoying his dinner

And then he was off! 

Driving along the mine haul road, I noticed a raptor on a slag heap eating something. Grant stopped and I took several photos. I'm sorry about the quality;  I have no explanation or excuse...

Yellow-billed Kite eating a feathery meal - probably a juvenile waterbird

Here it looks like a bird's claw in the kite's mouth

As we drove through the boom gate and back home for the last time (after birding!)
we spotted the resident Heron

I'm linking my post to Wild Bird Wednesday which you can access here

One of the first things I had to get used to when we moved to Tanzania in 2012 - apart from the horrors of being thrown into the deep-end to manage the expat Guest House - was that we'd never see beautiful birds such as we'd had in Kenya. Two months later, friend Wessel took us into the bush one Sunday afternoon. I had my camera with me and I remember almost pouncing on a d'Arnaud's Barbet to take a photo. 

And the rest is history...

Bird for bird and critter for critter, we saw more bird-and wildlife in Mwadui, on the mine and in the surrounding bush than we'd seen in Kenya or South Africa. 

As this post is aired, Grant and I will be on our bike and doing  tour to the Cape. Rina is looking after the house and of course, five cats and two doggies. 

Happy Wednesday to you all! 

Pied Crow, Blue Tanzanian Skies

I'm linking to Skywatch Friday here

Penultimate birding in Mwadui

The week before we left Tanzania (when I wasn't flying around the country with the cats!) Grant and I did a last spot of birding. 

Abdim's Stork

Raptor (to be identified!)

Western Marsh Harrier (thanks Margaret of Birding for Pleasure!) 

Red-billed Quelea

White-browed Coucal (Juvenile)

Rattling Cisticola

We saw many more which I'll post in next week's meme. For now I'm linking to Wild Bird Wednesday here

Happy Wednesday to you all! 

Last Saturday Critters in Mwadui

I was standing in my Mwadui garden when I saw the Nando  jump up against the reed fence, yapping excitedly. I walked towards to him and saw a chameleon making its way hastily up the fence. I had my camera around my neck and snapped away as the pretty critter moved up and out of harm's way. 

It climbed up onto the reeds and moved along stealthily

With pups milling around far below the chameleon quickly clambered up and away from danger.  By now I was in the street outside the property taking these photos 

Michael had arrived with a thick stick and we coaxed the chameleon off the fence and onto this

Finally we eased the chameleon onto a shrub across the road from our front gate

I'm linking to Eileen's Saturday Critters which you can visit 

here

Although I'm back in South Africa, I still have several bird and critter posts from Mwadui and will continue to post about them for a while. You can imagine how I'm also missing this part of our life in Tanzania! 

Grant Googled this chameleon and told me what he'd discovered but I was busy with travel arrangements at the time and can't remember! 

The Swahili name for a chameleon is kinyonga and if you click on the Google link above you'll see the scientific name for several species is very similar. 

Thanks for all the wonderful birthday wishes here and on Facebook. My party here at home yesterday was very special - I'll post about this shortly.

Happy Saturday to you all!

Green against blue

For more sky posts around the world, please click here

Good fences, good critters

Namaqua Dove (Male) on fence at explosives magazine

A bashful Agama Lizard on a pillar supporting the fence around the explosives magazine

I'm linking my post to Good Fences Thursday.

I hope you're all having a wonderful week. 

Kestrel, Bishop and Social Weaver

Common Kestrel (Male)

Grey-capped Social Weaver 

Southern Red bishop

Eastern Paradise-whydah

For more birds please visit Wild Bird Wednesday here

African Summer Skies

For more beautiful skies, please click here

Good Fences, Good Crows

I tend to feel sorry for crows. They are much maligned and not at all sought after when we go out birding. Crows seem to be harsh in nature and chase the smaller birds from the garden. They have a strident call which grates on the nerves. They seem to breed incessantly too and if not controlled, crows can cause the local bird population to disappear. We found this to be true on a Mozambican island holiday. We'd gone there to snorkel and of course to bird. There was not one of the bird species offered in the tour catalog; instead there were hundreds and hundreds of crows.  I'm not sure about the next allegation: but perhaps they also raid nests of fledglings and eggs? 

Anyway, the long and the short of it is crows aren't much loved by birders.  

However,  last weekend it was  a pair of crows who created an ideal opportunity for me to get photos of fences, which is the purpose of this post. When we rounded the explosives magazine on Sunday morning, Grant stopped and pointed at a pied crow eating something off a small bank inside the barbed enclosure. 

The fuzzy line across the crow's body is part of the barbed wire fence

Crows eat anything and everything so I'm not sure what this bird was enjoying so intensely

The barbed wire fence is more visible in this photo

The crow in the first photos walked off the screen to the right; immediately another crow strode into the picture

A crow struts confidently along the ridge

I'm linking my post to TexWisGirl 's Good Fences Thursday which you can visit here

Here's wishing you all a very Happy Thursday!