This cheetah was a surprise during a game drive; to be honest, cheetah are never really on my radar when in the Sabi Sands, so every sighting of them is a bonus.
2020-07-20: Monochrome Monday
2020-07-19: Yellow-rumped warbler
I was out with my dog at lunchtime this past week and saw an unfamiliar bird hopping through the lawn. I had just enough time to dash back inside and grab my camera to get a few shots to try and ID it later. I was actually a little disappointed when I did, as the yellow-rumped warbler summers to the north of here and winters far to the south in California and Mexico; Prince George is part of the migratory zone, so it was already on its journey southward again, reinforcing the notion that summer is waning (when weather wise, it has never really begun).
I’ve seen a dramatic decrease in the hummingbird numbers over the past week and I am sure within a week or so they will all be gone. I will miss hearing their buzzing while out for walks and my daily feeder fillings.
The seasons move on, whether we want them to or not, and I am going to keep this brief as the sun has finally come out, and it is time to get out and enjoy the few hours of summery weather we will get this weekend.
Wishing everyone a wonderful week.
2020-07-15: Leopards
2020-07-12: Wild Dogs
Much like elephants, I have posted many, many times about my love of wild dogs. They are amazing animals to spend time with, and the more I learn about them, the more I like them.
I was super fortunate on my last trip to see two different packs at two different camps. The sightings were very different; one had us with them as they awoke from a day of napping and set off on the hunt, and the second had us finding them late morning, getting ready to rest away part of the day in the cooler shade of a dry riverbed.
I look through my images and dream now, more than ever, of having the opportunity to travel back to my favourite places again sometime soon.
I’ve posted lots of other wild dog images in the past. You can find them through a keyword search, or check out one of these posts. Some of these go right back to the very start of this blog 🙂
2020-07-06: Monochrome Monday
Current mood. Is it bedtime yet???
Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead!
2020-07-05: Photo Art – Rhinos
For my Dad’s Father’s Day gift, I adopted a blind rhino named Maxwell, being cared for at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, in his name. Rhino’s were the animal he was most excited to see on our first trip to South Africa, so it seemed like a good fit (and proved to be a very popular gift, as was the elephant I adopted for my Mom for Mother’s Day).
I try to make homemade cards whenever possible, and created these two images to make my Dad’s Father’s Day card. These were done with images I shot my last time in South Africa, using a variety of filters in the Topaz Studio program.
2020-06-21: World Giraffe Day
Today is World Giraffe Day, and an opportunity for me to not have to think what to post! I can just share a few images of these adorable and goofy looking animals 🙂
This image was so brightly coloured it looked like some type of HDR image; so I had to do some serious desaturation to get it to look reasonable. I’m not sure what causes that to happen every once in a while, but it does make for interesting editing. This young giraffe was part of a group of 4 or 5 that were scattered in the trees enjoying some browsing.
Have a great week everyone!
2020-06-17: Wordless Wednesday
2020-06-14: Civet
On my 6th journey to Africa, I was fortunate enough to add two new species to my wildlife list; both on the same evening and both quick, blink and you’d miss them, type sightings. And both on the 1st game drive of the trip 🙂 The first were honey badgers, which I had desperately wanted to see (and if you missed the photos of those, you can find them here) and the second is the civet that is pictured below.
I don’t know much about civets, and as we had such a jam packed game drive, while sharing our vehicle with some wonderful safari newbies, our guide didn’t have a chance to provide too much of a chat about them. While I am sure any search engine could yield me more information on a civet than I ever could need to know, I might just leave this one and hope I see one again, and get a bit more information on it while out in the field. As if I needed another excuse to return to Africa!
Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.
2020-06-10: Wordless Wednesday
