Hurrah for the holidays and time to read books! I have been browsing my collection of old books, and thought I’d “let nature back in” via illustrations from three British early-20th-century children’s books depicting children living in small villages in the English countryside. Continue reading “Close to nature: The English countryside in three children’s books from the early 20th century”
The summer garden is made special by gorgeous flowers that attract birds and insects, and most noticeably, the industrious honeybee. Continue reading “It’s not this time of the year without … flowers and honeybees”
After photographing droplets of rain on various plants in the garden, it was only later that I realized that I’d caught refracted images of flowers in some of the droplets. Magical or lucky – is there a difference? Continue reading “Magical refractions”
I first time I saw this snake was when it fell out of a grapevine over our back deck. I was sweeping the deck and it fell on the deck right beside me, much to my surprise, its surprise and the surprise of our two dogs. Continue reading “The snake that tamed me”
Tiny, but able to attack prey up to three times its size this brightly coloured flower crab spider (Thomisus genus) waits on a nasturtium flower in our vegetable garden for potential victims. Continue reading “Tiny ambush hunter”
In the wild, grasslands and woodlands grow themselves without any help from us. To an extent (and in miniature) we can mimic this in our suburban gardens. Continue reading “Do not disturb: Let parts of the garden grow itself”
The Southern Boubou is most noticeable on account of its ringing duetting call. It is an audible presence in our garden, and we catch glimpses of the pair hopping through low dense foliage, but they are shy and it is difficult to get a clear view of them. These photos were taken on a recent road trip to the Western Cape and back. Cheating perhaps? Continue reading “Southern Boubou: A bushshrike that’s usually quite shy”
The theme of this week’s photo challenge is “transmogrify”. Here are some river frog eggs about to transform into tadpoles. Continue reading “Frog’s eggs morphing to tadpoles”
This elegantly slender, auburn-hued mongoose with a distinctive black tip to its long tail is most often seen dashing for cover, although sometimes it does stop to look back over its shoulder before disappearing into dense vegetation. Seeing this mongoose just beyond the bottom of our garden was a special experience. Continue reading “Elusive garden visitor: Slender Mongoose”
