Untamed Land

Untamed Land
Untamed Land

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

More Africa

There are so many good photos from South Africa that I have not yet posted, I feel almost obligated to share them. This Long-crested Eagle for example. I hope these endless posts dont become too tiresome.
I like the contours of the muddy river bank in this photo. The birds are Egyptian Geese.
A mature Leopard Tortoise loses much of it's rich color with age. In this case, the tortoise's faded colors match it's background almost perfectly.
At one of the rest camps, there was a water feature that drew in many birds, like this African Masked Weaver, (left) and Greater Blue-eared Starling.

Another species visiting the water feature, Red-billed Buffalo Weaver.
In a nearby tree I was able to photograph this attractive male, Diederik Cuckoo.
We had a difficult time identifying this cuckoo at first. Then we saw it being fed by a Common Bulbul, and we realized that it was a fledgeling Jacobin Cuckoo. They are nest parasites, mainly on Common Bulbuls.
Three African Pied Wagtails cavorting along a rocky river bottom. It's obvious that they spend a lot of time there.
This Striated, (Green) Heron fished nearby.
The female Red-backed Shrike looks like an entirely different species than the male.
A common bird that is very vocal, but hard to see and photograph, because it is such a skulker, Arrow-marked Babbler. They have a lot of personality in spite of their shy natures.
I kept pronouncing these guys the American way, Zee-bras. The local South Africans told me the correct pronunciation was, Zeh-bras. Potay-to, potah-to, get outta da road.

1 comment:

Jeremy Pearse said...

I say keep them coming John! For me it is like a trip down memory lane viewing all these wonderful photos. Wish that I had taken more pics when I lived there but as often is the case, you don't fully appreciate a place until you are away from it and it is so easy to take everything for granted!