Living Lawn Ornaments

My friend Angie likes Flamingos. And has several that adorn her yard. Recently a mutual friend Carolyn posted a link on Facebook of a Flamingo image taken in Kenya. To me the image looks improbable, but if someone waited for exactly the right conditions I suppose it could be real.

It is not clear why this post showed up in my feed. It could be because I had recently been chatting with Angie. Or it could have been random Facebook stuff. Who knows?

My comment was "Been There". To which Carolyn replied, "Did it look like this".

My answer, "Not exactly."

Here is what it looked like to me.

These are Lesser  Flamingos.

And while there were quite a few of them, they were both distant and-or spread out.

There were also Greater Flamingos. Not as pink.

And obviously larger.

It was quite impressive.

And real.

🦩  🦩  🦩 🦩  🦩

Here is a link to the image on Facebook. It is from an organization: www.discoverafricaa.com. It is used without permission.

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I've known Angie for over thirty years. I hired her twice (I hired Carolyn once, and we all worked happily together). The reason I had been recently chatting with Angie is she learned that as of April 8th, she will no longer be employed. If I had an open position I'd hire her a third time. So if you, or anyone you know, needs a Technical Business Analyst/Software Tester/Scrum Master/Product Owner, let me know and I'll get you in touch.

Happy International Zebra Day!

Also known more prosaically as January 31st. 

And to celebrate, here are some images of Common Zebras.

Enjoy!

Taken in Kenya on our trip in 2015.

🦓  🦓  🦓  🦓  🦓

You can learn more about January 31st, aka International Zebra Day at this link.

More Moving Lichen

I had mentioned in this post that it was not the first time that I had seen moving lichen.

This is the first one I saw:

And here is a video of it in action: Lacewing Larvae Video.

This one was in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, in Uganda.

There was other cool stuff in the that forest ...

Roadside Hawk

The only other bird I had images of from August 11, 2015 were those of this bird ...

... the African Harrier-Hawk. Which we saw while driving that day.

We saw over fifty different bird species that day. But I only have photographs of two of them.

And now you've seen them both.

🦅  🦅  🦅

Note there is a bird named "Roadside Hawk", which I've seen on a number of occasions in Central and South America, but do not have any photos of. This is not that bird. Sorry for any confusion.

Also at the Hotel

But not a guest was this bird.

Image courtesy Laura Keene

A Pennant-winged Nightjar in breeding plumage.

I had spotted the bird, actually two of them, while enjoying a beer sitting outside my hotel room (I had hoped to see them; chance and the prepared mind). Patty and I quickly went and alerted our other tour mates. It was a life bird for all, including Adrian our guide. Laura took this photo the next morning, it being too dark when we first saw them.

🐧 🐔 🐦 🐤 🦆 🦅 🦉 🦃 🐓 🦜 🦢 🕊 🐣

Laura Keene did a ABA region Big Year in 2016, the year after our Africa trip. And she came in third. With 814 species seen. That's a lot of birds. For comparison, lifetime in the ABA area I've seen 565 species.

I better get out there looking ...

One of One Hundred and Twenty-one

The next morning, outside that hotel at Lake Kivu, we saw, among other birds, these.

Double-toothed Barbets.

The tree was full of them.

Just one of the 121 different species of birds we saw in Rwanda. It was a fun trip.

Hanging In There

In August 2015 Patty and I found ourselves in Rwanda at the Lake Kivu Serena Hotel as part of a safari tour.

And we found these hanging in the trees outside the front door of the hotel.

Straw-colored Fruit Bats.

Very large and very cool members of the order Chiroptera.

We arrived in the early evening, and the bats were coming into roost. Each image shows several bats settled in for the night An unexpected treat at the end of a long day of traveling.

🦇  🦇  🦇

Like many birders, I use eBird to report my bird sitings. And like many birders I occasionally get an email asking for more info about a particular bird reported. And so it occurred that I received such an email on March 30, 2019 for a siting on August 11, 2015, in Rwanda.

eBird relies on a volunteer workforce to review submitted reports and sometimes they fall a bit behind.

Anyways, as part of looking into my records of the siting I reviewed the pictures I took that day. I did not have any images of the bird in question, an Abyssinian Thrush. But I did have images of these bats.

I hope you like them. I enjoyed seeing them.

🐘  🦍  🦓  🦒  🦛  🦏  🐃  🐆

We went on safari with Wildside Nature Tours. We've gone on several of their tours. Highly recommended.

Sunset

On our first evening in the Mara.

The Masai Mara, Kenya.

Bad Day

The zebras on either side of the river were calling. It was a sad call, apparently to group members separated. Some which had crossed. Some which had not.

And despite the fact that there were thousands of zebra on the goal side of the river, the urge to be with the specific group was greater than the threat from the crocodiles. And zebras, in small groups, continued to return to whence they had come.

This was not always a wise choice. The crocs knew the zebra were here. And they cared not for the direction they crossed.

And both zebras got slammed.

Given the size of the crocs it is rather amazing that they made it across.

But not unscathed. If you look closely (after bigafying of course) the larger zebra's left front leg you can see blood spurting out.

But they did make it across. Although I don't think that's the best place for junior to stand. Just sayin'.

Nor was it the best place for mom to rest. Methinks there's a cliche about frying pans and fire that might be appropriate here.

I can only think that junior is in shock here. How else to explain that it does not move away from the leopard?

It seems junior has finally figured this is not the place to be.

Now just when you thought it could not get any worse ...

We thought there would some tug of war action, but the crocs are too big for their own good. They can't lift themselves up over the rocks.

And the prize remained just out of reach.

The leopard ate its fill.

And then washed it down with a nice long drink from the river.

It seems the leopard was rather lucky. Bigafy the image above and look at the cat's left rear leg. It too is injured. An injury that prevents it from running and jumping full bore. This beast will have a difficult time hunting. Thus prey that falls into its lap is a godsend.

We would come back the next morning and the zebra was gone. Did the leopard pull it up into the trees? Did the crocs find a way to get to it? Did lions or hyenas or some other predator claim it as there own? We'll never know. But the fact that there were no remains to be seen leads us to believe the leopard dragged it away.

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To recap:

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the river.

Mama zebra is leopard food.

Baby zebra is an orphan.

Crocodiles do all the work and get nothing for their trouble.
Leopard gets a meal or two, but still is injured and can't run.

You might want to bookmark this page to review the next time you think you're having a bad day.

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My thanks to Laura Keene for the use of her 500 mm lens for some of the above images.

Please Be Extra Careful When Using the Level Crossing

Our second to last day in the Maasai Mara, and we stopped at a river crossing to see what was happening.

We found zebras gathering at the river's edge. Drinking.

And then crossing.

And crossing.

And crossing, in rather large numbers, successfully fording the last barrier to migration's end.

But there was danger lurking.

In the form of very large Nile crocodiles.

Which led to a change of plan. Albeit temporary, as they would all need to cross eventually, to get to the remaining food sources. But it seemed that the zebra were sensible creatures, recognizing danger and reacting accordingly.

Appearances can be deceiving, as some of the zebras, despite the obvious crocodiles in the river, not only decided to cross, be decided to cross back to the side they had just came from. This can't be good, right? But these three made it back without incident.

The crocs aren't just there for a swim however.

To be continued ...

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The title of this post comes from a phrase repeated again and again on the train I rode into the city on my recent trip to Newcastle. It seems to be a bit of a problem across the pond. And it seems zebras aren't the only dim witted species when it comes to dangerous crossings.

Wild Beasts

Hippos were not the only beasts of my childhood dreams that we saw on our boat ride.

There were ...

Masai Giraffes! This one munching on cacti. Yummy!

Impala!

Waterbuck!

Zebra! (Which if you are British, rhymes with Debra. Weird, right?)

((But by the end of the trip I was pronouncing it that way too. Thanks Adrian!))

And the first of the "Ugly Big Five", Wildebeest!

(Note also the Fish Eagle on top of the right tree.)

We would get better views of all these and more throughout our stay, but the excitement of seeing them live in the wild for the first time was pure joy. And on my first day!

These animals live on an island in the national park and are the descendants of those brought there for the filming of the movie, Out of Africa. No predators where brought in, so they have it pretty good here.

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Here are parts one, two, and three in the Boat Ride in Kenya series.