Malachite Kingfishers came to Play

This post is mainly of Malachite Kingfishers both adult and juveniles or immatures. The Bittern, Reed Warbler and a Waxbill also have a guest appearance.

Saturday was an early start to get to Marievale  bird sanctuary which is a very large area near the Gold Mining town of Nigel on the east Rand. The wet land was created by the mines when they pumped the water from their underground workings.Some of these mines are still in operation at the present time so the wet land is still being filled from this pumping. Land as far as i am aware was turned into a conservancy by the mine owners and as such the whole community has benefited from it.

Bittern

This is a rather delicate balancing act while fishing.

Common Waxbill

Immature Malachite Kingfisher

Caught Lunch

Immature Malachite Kingfisher

The image above is of the immature bird as can be seen from the colour of the bill and feet.

Fly by

The immature Kingfisher has a dark coloured bill and feet, while the mature has the very distinctive red bill and feet. As one can see from the photo below.

Snack Time

Botched Landing

Purple Swamp Hen

Reed Warbler

Wiskered Tern

Common Mongoose

The common mongoose or as it is known locally as the Red Mongoose, these creatures can be very shy and most often they are seen fleetingly as they rush off to safety usually away from humans. So i felt very privileged to be able to photograph this one as it posed quietly then left in a very dignified way not the usual mad dash.

Butterflies and Birds with Attitude.

Last weekend the butterflies were out so the day became one of closeups of these beautiful creatures.
If any one knows the correct names for these butterflies please let me know. I have tried to the best of my knowledge to name them but have probable misidentified some of the butterflies.
 
The mountain photographs are an on going process and will be posted as and when I have a clutch of them ready.

Butterfly and Bee

 Both of these were very busy collecting or eating nectar.

Blue Butterfly

Blue Butterfly

 I think this is a Smoky Blue

Bulbul

 He just sat and watched me carefully while I photographed him.

Rufas Butterfly

 If any one knows the correct name please let me know.

Acraea Encedon

 I think the common name is Monarch Butterfly

Acraea Encedon

Prinia

This fellow was flitting from bush to bush and shouting the odds at the top of his voice. Here he sat long enough for me to get this shot of him in full voice.

Have a great week and i hope you have enjoyed these photos as much as i have enjoyed both the photographing of them and looking at them.

To all those that took the time to comment on the last post thanks it was greatly appreciated.

Maluti Mountains & Other Images

NEW YEAR 2013

I must add that I went and stood on to of the highest point in the Maluti Mountains That I could get to, not very high by world standards but high enough for me all 2500m above see level, to see the end of the World, but as I thought would happen Nothing just plain nothing.

At last here is the first post of the new year I have been reviewing the photos that I took over the December break.

Here are some of the first ones to be processed.

Old Barn

Blue Tiger

The Stud Stallion standing at Riverton Stud in the Western Province of South Africa.

Kraai River Bridge
(Kraai in English is Crow)

Blue Cranes a mating Pair
These are in one of the Paddocks on Riverton Stud.

Warriors Way River Crossing

The is the route which Mosheshwe and his warriors took thought the mountains to raid the European Settlers and Xhosa people. The Narrow gauge railway (now discontinued) bridge is the river crossing the raiding parties used to take about 100 years ago.

Bully Canary

Kraai River
This was taken upstream of the road bridge.

Daasies Hoek Nature Reserve
Her we have a little known gem in the Robertson Area of the Western Cape

 

Karoo Sunset
This was take just out side of a little town in the Karoo called Victoria West.

There will be more posts of the mountains as I process the raw images.

With all the over cast weather and rain this weekend I decided to have a look in my archives for some cheerful colourful  photos.
This what I came up with ....

Not much to say just just enjoy any feed back is welcome.

A Closer Look At Life

I have been taking a closer look at the natural world again.here is the result.

Praying Mantis Baby

This Baby Mantis is about 4mm long not sure if it is a leaf mantis or a stick Mantis as it is so tiny.

Here I was looking for bark texture when I spotted this "face" in the bark.

This photo is one of those anomalies that one finds in nature.
Some people will see faces and some wont it just depends on one's imagination

Heat Map

I was experimenting with this type of photograhy when I came up with these colours just so "cool".

Hidden Secrets

Again this tree bark revealed some hidden secrets that white blob is a larvae of some kind.

Here I found this screw in the tree all I can think of the original farmer or miner might have placed it there while prospecting for gold.

Spider & Wasp

In this photo if one looks carefully into the crack on the right a spider and a wasp are faced off, i don't know which one is hunting the other.
One way or the other it will end up as a bad day for one.

Twisted Life

These vines growing in the forest just made for an interesting photo.
This photo is a three shot HDR with the shots 1 F stop apart.

The left over rain from the previous night just an interesting exercise in still life.










For the technically minded the Camera is Pentax K7
The Lens is a Tamron 100mm macroF2.8
Flash gun is FZ 360 with a bodged flash disperser  made from opaque plastic drawing sheet.


All Comments are welcome.

Water Birds And White Rino

 Been a bit slow this week about posting some photos. I have been going through some of the back log I found these from a couple of weeks ago that I completely forgot to post.

This cool customer just watched me carefully secure in the knowledge that there was 15m of water between us.

Avocet

Crested Grebe

Snack Time

 This crested Grebe came floating along then just ducked under the water and surfaced with his fish snack.

Flight of the Intruder

White Rino

White Rino

Mines bigger than Yours

This pair of Barn Swallows were taking turns in perching on this branch. The one on the perch wasn't giving it up at all, so the flying swallow kept buzzing him.

This Rino looks like he broke off the tip of his horn  most likely rooting around for some tasty root or some thing or creating a wallow for it self.




















This pare of White Rino were having a sniffing contest checking each other out, they tend to have rather poor eye sight so they use a very keen sense of smell to aid them.

These two Rinos were just socializing as you can see one has had its horn removed as an anti poaching measure, but unfortunately it seems that the poachers are complete devoid of morals and any sense of pity as they are now killing the Rinos without horns out of spite.

White Rino

To be able to get this close to these magnificent animals to photograph them is a real privilege, they look and behave fairly docile manner until they have a calf then they are the most aggressive creatures i have the honor of being chased by a couple of years ago a female Rino with a calf took exception to my car and chased it for about 500mm at the park speed limit the Rino was gaining on the car so needles to say we got good move on, once the Rino Cow was satisfied that that she made her point she left me alone and the car intact.