…Your eyes are closed in that photo?
This is a Red Toad (Schismaderma carens) and they’re very commonly seen on safari. Love.
Tag: Photos
Nature heals in incredible ways…
I fell crazy in love with this aloe the moment I saw it. You’ve got to admire the fact that something’s clearly tried to nibble away at it, but it didn’t give up; it sent along a layer of special protection for its broken bits. See how the light shines through? Love love love.
The Bird I Love…
This is Ron Swanson. He’s a young Lanner Falcon and I’ve been flying him for a few months now.
Ron is a rehab bird. At the beginning of the year, he flew into a window. I know. He’s not very smart. But then birds of prey generally aren’t. They’re the ultimate hunting machine, with a set of huge, well-developed eyes. Big eyes = small brain. I have super-tiny eyes. Ron doesn’t.
So anyway, he flew himself into a window and got a tremendous bump on his head. Then he spent a lot of time in a hospital, which he LOVED because his food was dropped into his mouth each day. To be able to do nothing and still eat is every bird of prey’s biggest dream.
And now Ron needs to get fit if he’s ever going to go back to the wild where he was born and belongs. So I fly him hard to a lure. It means I get to stand in the middle of a field swinging a leather pad at the end of a string while he finds some super-high perch and laughs at me from it. And I love every moment of it.
I’m really just telling you all of this so that I can show off a photo of him today that I washed in pink. I like pink.
Months of Tedious Camera Trapping Finally Pays Off…
For months and months now, I’ve been putting out a camera trap on most nights. And every morning I scan through countless photos of duikers. Nothing too exciting.
So today when I started flipping through the duiker photos from last night, I found that one of the duikers wasn’t alone. A serval! I knew they were supposed to be on the farm, but still couldn’t imagine them being here. But they totally are.
Sometimes I bait the camera trap with dead things (no shortage of those around here) and last night it was baited with a yellow-billed kite that we tragically found dead on the main road nearby. While plenty of duikers (and a serval, obviously) came to investigate it last night, nothing took it. So the trap is set once again. Can’t wait to see if our spotty cat comes back…
Serval!
It’s a Duiker. A COMMON Duiker.
Yes it is.
I’ve been setting up a camera trap in the garden for the last week, hoping to ‘catch’ the serval that obviously visits us on a regular basis. Thus far, the camera trap has succeeded in taking photos of me putting up the camera… and me taking down the camera. But last night, it got a duiker! Duikers are very common. It’s even in their name. ‘COMMON Duiker.’
Why this fairly pointless post? Because I should be WRITING. And the last time I picked up my computer to write, I wrote something like, “I’m glad my dead friends aren’t leaves, because i’d eat them all before we even got home in the taxi.” Needs context. You’ll have to buy my book for that.
It Begins With an Owl
Because it has to begin somewhere.
This morning I snapped a photo of this irate marsh owl. Photographing owls is a fabulous distraction from other things I should be doing right now. I need to be polishing off my book and having it ready for publication in a few weeks. But owls are easier.
Owls have huge eyes. Huge eyes = tiny brain. Tiny brain = no intelligence. No intelligence = no worries. No responsibilities.
I’m having an owl day.
Marsh Owl. July 17, 2013.
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