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Trying out my new Cannon power shot s2 in my garden.

In a feeding free for all late yesterday afternoon I counted the folowing birds all together throwing the full kitchen sink at a small group of flying ants:

Black-eyed bulbul
Cape Robin Chat
Little swift
Greater Striped Swallow
Olive thrush
Crested barbet

even the seed-eaters like, Village Weaver and Southern Masked-Weaver, joined in.

Was the first time that I have witnessed such a thing!

Got 4 nests with little babies in them

Rock Pigeon have got 2 little ones,
Cape Bul Bul have got 2 little ones,
Cape White Eye have got 2 little ones, and cannot see the Cape Robins little ones but see the parents flying in and out to feed them
When I hear a Crow flying about I dash out with my broom to shoo it away

Not really my garden, but can be heard from my garden.
I live in the area where geese have their sleepingplace.
Called the Biesbosch. During the daytime they eat leftovers
from the farmland and grasses. When it gets dark they depart for their beds .

I hear them come over my house in great flocks. Usually takes a hour or so. First groups arrived this weekend.
In december we have the most groups flying over.
And when its a foggy night they fly real low and i imagine that i am in a kind of Harry Pottermovie. Cause the geese call to each other. And sound travels far in the fog

There are round 20.000,00 geese sleeping in the Biesbosch
(They dont all fly over Dordrecht)

Another reason why i love winter creeping in upon us.

Not back garden exactly but when we went to work this morning the Brent and Canada geese had taken over the "playing fields" at the edge of the site that I work on. Just the lapwings to arrive now.

Saw a spotted dikkop this morning. It was the closest I have ever been to one. What a lovely bird and what a pity that I did not have my camera with me.

Only have 2 little Rock Pigeons left, looked at the other nest and found them empty
So that &@#*% Crow got hold of the little White Eyes and the Bul Bul's

The 2 little Rock Pigeons look to cute for words, they are starting to get new feathers The parents are soo busy now feeding these two they must be exhausted by now

The night before last at about midnight there was an big owl sitting on our neighbours TV aerial, long time since we have seen owl in our area.
At work we had a meerkat running around in the garden this week.

My balcony 2004

2005


I only have a few critters on my balcony, like
Wasp
Bee
Spider

Highlight:
Dragonfly
Distelfinken / Stieglitz (Carduelis carduelis)

Every morning I get a family of Egyptian geese outside my house. They even scare my cats away!!

This Hamerkop visited our garden yesterday as well as this morning. Have seen him often, but then he was merely flying past or in the small stream near our house. This stream was recently cleared from all reeds and plants – think there are now less fish and frogs and he might be looking for new hunting grounds …. hopefully he will get the 1 1/2m mamba that was in our neighbours’ yard on Thursday

From the legend that I know, killing them does not help. You are doomed, end of story. But there was some ritual that you could go through to get things right, but I don't remember.

When I arrived in Gauteng, about 10 years ago, I spent a whole afternoon looking for a cat in distress.
It was the Lourie. No wonder our TV awards take their name from such a vocal deceptive bird

Morning all! Got woken up at 1:30 this morning with a shrill tsk tsk tsk sound. My wife asked me what it was and I replied that I did not have a clue... Was not a bird, thats for sure.

Got up, pulled the blinds aside and 2m from me sat a bushbaby screaming his lil head off. Got nice footage of it and WTV managed a picture with the cam.

It was around for about 5-7min and then jumped away, hearing dogs bark as far as it went.

Then the thickknees started. The last thing I heard was a Burchell's coucal at 3:00. I am tired but it is such a wonderfull day that I will ignore the tiredness.

I was wondering if there were any bushbabies in our new suburb 2-3 weeks ago when I drove to work on morning. Just yesterday at around 18:45 I was thinking back to a while ago when I saw a bushbaby at our old place at a similar time, where bulbuls tipped me off to its whereabouts and again I wondered about whether they do occur over here as well.

Coincidence hey? Or did I wish it into existence?

My garden is huge and I see many birds and even have kangaroos bouncing around. I am currently watching a pair of Welcome Swallows raise their second family of the season. They had four kids last time and just yesterday I noticed the parents rushing around and saw a head in the nest. No sure how many babies yet.

Then last week I witnessed a kill which took place about 20m from me. A Wedged tailed Eagle came down on a parrot feeding from the horses feed. He first knocked it to the ground and then came around again to pick it up. Quiet amazing.