Flowers Were Yesterday. Waterbirds Today!

There's a water purification wetland in South Africa called Strandfontein Wetlands. It looks a bit utilitarian; square ponds separated by raised dikes, but any concerns about its aesthetic qualities, or lack thereof, are dashed by the spectacular birdlife using the rich wetland habitat thus created. 

Blacksmith lapwings are elegant, yappy and ubiquitous. We were fortunate to see many pairs with young on our trip, none close enough for photography. 

I've found that my camera absolutely loves blacksmith lapwings. It can see blacksmith lapwings. Ergo, it can focus on them. It can't see lilac-breasted rollers. It is really hard to get a sharp photo of a perched roller. When it flies, the high-contrast midnight blue edge on the wing sticks out to the camera's eye, and I can usually get a sharp shot of one in flight. I'll take it.

Back to the lapwing: my lens even caught the little spurs on the bird's wrists (blown up below). This is a feature shared by jacanas, who have fancy yellow ones, horned screamers, who have dangerous ones, and some other species. I believe the spurs originate from the bird's thumb. Hoatzins, those stinky weird hissing swamp birds from South America, have straight up claws on their wrists, that they use for climbing, Archaeopteryx-style. Doin' it old school. Anyway, I never knew blacksmith lapwings had spurs until I saw my photo. I love my Canon 7D and that 70-300 telephoto lens. So much. 

Black-winged stilt takes wing with the lapwing. Beautiful. 

  More high-contrast birds: A black-headed heron strides by a huge arum lily. We call them callas. Look, dahling. The calla lilies are in bloo-um. Those things are EVERYWHERE in South Africa. Coming up in marshes, on dunes, in pastures...man. An abundance of riches.

Black-shouldered kite eyes us from a Casuarina tree.

A black-winged stilt favors its right leg, which has a fish hook in its heel. Damn it. People. If you're going to fish in a sewage treatment plant stuffed with waders, can you please keep track of your tackle? How I wished I had my long-handled net.

Another stilt takes flight.

Quiet reflections from yellow-billed ducks, Cape shovelers, and another black-winged stilt.

There's an odd brown salvia abloom. The sunbirds love it. Must be full of spicy nectar. Quite a looker, once you get used to the flower color!

This mystery butterfly reminded me of our Harvester. It's feeding at a pelargonium!

Members of the Mesembryanthaceae (we call them ice plants) are called "Vygies" locally. It's pronounced Fay-ghees. You have to roll spit around in the back of your mouth to say it the way the Afrikaans folks do. I try but just end up sounding like I'm hockering. I loved this peach colored one!

The dunes were covered with Osteospermums and other composites. So beautiful! Masses and masses and drifts of spring color, everywhere!

I know. I said we were looking at waterbirds today. But...flowers. When I got a load of the botanizing one can do in the Cape region last year, I made sure to emphasize that in the trip description for Holbrook Travel. And we attracted some master gardeners--three to be exact--who were happy as warthogs in a waterhole, hunkered down appreciating these botanical wonders.

Such a great group, the garden mavens gettin' down low and diggin' those posies.

My kind of people.

Welcome to Oz

When you sit for 16.5 hours at a stretch on a jet flying through what seems like endless night, flying with the turning of the earth such that it stays dark almost the entire time, you can do many things. First, of course, you could choose to suffer, because you're in business class wedged in with not much room to spare. But suffering is relative, and this is not real suffering, but imagined suffering. You're on a jet, coming from two weeks' safari in South Africa, for Pete's sake. You are not suffering.

Second, you could sleep. You try. No, you can't sleep, bolt upright in an aisle seat. Scratch "sleep." Let it go.

Next, you could read. You have a good book, but everyone around you is sleeping, or trying to, and it seems rude to turn on your light. Hmm.

OK. What about watching movies? Well, you could do that, but after 1.3 of them, you're done partaking, because you'd rather be doing something productive than weeping over the plight of a young Irish immigrant, or trying to figure out what's so great about The Big Lebowski (dumb guys screaming at each other, far as I could tell). Let's face it. You're not equipped to be a movie buff.

I know what. You could edit photos. You can lose yourself for the eight-hour battery life of your laptop, sifting through the incredible images grabbed and saved by your Canon 7D. Yep. That's what you'll do. This is why I lug my laptop wherever I go. It alleviates suffering. It actually makes the flight home  enjoyable!

So I'm going to try something here, picking chunks of photos winnowed in that endless night from the 2016 Zicktrip to South Africa. I'm going to try to keep it short and sweet and let the images do most of the talking. On this trip, I worked with Holbrook Travel to deliver six natural history freaks from America into the capable hands of Lawson's Birding, Wildlife and Custom Safaris for a trip none of us will ever forget.

Our guide for the Cape portion was Lawson's natural history guide Kim Wright, well-versed in flora, fauna and avifauna, and despite being native to South Africa, just as freshly agog as we were at it all. Lovely combination!

First stop for the bleary, weary group was Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens outside Cape Town. It's the perfect anodyne to dark, stressful, cramped, and colorless jet travel--well-lit, soothing, spacious and colorful. You can wander and look and wonder at will. Off we go!

I could not resist this freshly-minted human and its attentive mother doing a photoshoot. And I remembered that particular tilt of the head that says, "I'm done posing for you."

Pulling back for the whole scene...

The late-afternoon sun was setting behind Table Mountain as we staggered up to the protea gardens at the top of Kirstenbosch.

A Karoo prinia, our companion for much of the trip, gave its endless, ringing tzing tzing tzing tzing from an aloe tip.

Cape sugarbirds, a much-sought endemic that depends on protea blossoms for its insect and nectar diet, posed atop enormous protea blossoms. This is a 20" bird, with tail, if you'd like some scale.

Heather flopped down with me to dig the pink Oxalis "weeds" in the lawn. We were definitely not in Pennsylvania any more!

The flopping, which I admit starting, proved contagious, and I knew right off the bat we'd have a lot of fun as a group! Gordon, Heather, Cat and Kate, all in a row, letting their cellphone cameras make the low-angle shots.

Watsonia looks over the Cape Town vista and our very happy campers.

Helmeted guineafowl remains vigilant, and screechy.

Silvertree glows in the late light. 

But there were birds amidst the botanical splendors! Oh! Oh! What was THAT singing in the Melianthus major?

Not a southern dusky flycatcher, like this one...

Not a sleepy spotted eagle owl...

It must have been a southern double-collared sunbird!

Here, plying a fresh pincushion protea for nectar. 

 Sunbirds are rather difficult to photograph, only partly because they're quick-moving. Most of the problem is that direct sunlight creates such high contrast in their reflective plumage that it's difficult to capture their local color. Deep afternoon shade, though, proved the ticket.  This remains one of my favorite photos from the trip. Behold the southern double-collared sunbird, knocking our eyes out as it sings while flashing its rarely-seen armament--candy yellow epaulets!

No, we're not in Ohio any more, and the fun is only beginning! My soul began a joyful inner squeeee! that kept up the entire trip. I occasionally released it out of my mouth, when it all got to be too much.

Conversation with a Kestrel

You will doubtless remember the red-winged blackbird, singing out his song in backlit water vapor, that so electrified me in this post.

Bryan Holliday made that image.  Here, he's pictured with a storm-tossed wedge-rumped storm petrel in Mesa, Arizona. I do love a good animal selfie!

photo by Muriel Neddermeyer

I've had the pleasure of corresponding with and finally meeting Bryan when my friend Shila and I traveled to Sedona, Arizona, this past July. As I'd figured, he's a gem, and so is his wonderful girlfriend Kim. Though I'd hoped to do a little birding/hiking/hanging out with Bryan, he was all wrapped up in first-day-of-school preparations for his job as an elementary school science teacher, and I was all wrapped up in Sedona Hummingbird Festival stuff. So Shila, Kim, Bryan and I shared a meal in Phoenix and got to know each other a bit, which of course only made us wish we didn't live so very far away. I asked him if he'd send me another photo story for the blog, and here it is!

I love this image of an American kestrel, hanging out on a weathered fencepost. Several things about this image grab me. First, I never knew that the kestrel's little rufous beanie stood up above the heavenly slate-blue brow amd crown feathers. Too dang much. Second, the hearts running in perfect staggery lines down his flank.  They couldn't be polka dots. They had to be perfect, fat little hearts. Third, the kestrel's look of peace and relaxation. No stress, no fear-sleeked feathers here. He's not about to flee; he's just looking back at Bryan, answering the clicks of the shutter with calm composure. This is a bird who's been approached slowly, with respect, who's been politely asked to stay for a little while and has been given the space to grant that request.

Please, click on the photo so you can see the detail I'm referring to. It's a beaut!!

Here's Bryan's story behind this remarkable photo.

After the red-winged blackbird photo titled “Morning Breath” was awarded First Prize in the Birds category of the National Wildlife Federation annual photo contest, I decided to submit it to a few others.  In the spring of 2009, the image caught the attention of Scott Bourne and the Aperture Nature Photography Workshops.  I was chosen as a finalist for the Emerging Photographer of the Year award and invited to Yellowstone National Park for a four day photo adventure, sponsored by Apple and their Aperture Nature Photography Workshops.  Our group consisted of four professionals and us four chosen amateurs.  We spent mornings and evenings shooting, with lunch and workshops during the afternoon to learn Aperture, which was Apple’s software to rival Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.  

We all had the greatest time traveling, photographing, and getting to know one another.  We all had different photographic styles and interests, challenging each other to look at everything through fresh eyes.  I was the only bird photographer of the amateurs, sharing this passion with Scott Bourne.  Since I was in a new place with a big lens, I had birds on the mind more than anything.  It was early April, so most of the birds were the residents.  We mostly saw black-billed magpies, common ravens, and Canada geese.  Then I began seeing American kestrels.  They were doing their hovering along the roadsides, looking for prey, and perching on the fence posts bordering the ranch lands.  I kept asking our drivers to stop so I could attempt to photograph one, but every time we did the bird flew away.  If you’ve ever tried to photograph a kestrel, you know what I mean.  They would look so beautiful sitting or hovering there, only to fly away as soon as we slowed down.  After two and half days of this, I was frustrated.  As was everyone else since they were sick of stopping!  It became a running joke.  I kept saying that I just needed to find the one bird that was willing to have his photo taken.  

On the third evening, we all set out to photograph the sunset at some gorgeous spot in the mountains.  But the heavy clouds made me think it would probably be a bust.  Luckily, we drove in multiple cars, because there were more kestrels along the way!  The others were done with this kestrel stuff and went on to the sunset spot.  I was determined to find my bird.  The clouds got even heavier gray.  We kept trolling along, a bird here and a bird there.  Then I spied a beautiful male kestrel on a cool wooden post, his colors rich in the overcast light.  We slowed down and crept toward him along the gravel road.  He stayed put.  I rolled down the window and put my big lens on the door frame, ready for a chance.  We crept even closer.  The bird still stayed.  I took a couple shots and he just sat there!  After confirming my exposure, I said “We’re going for gold”.  For the next few minutes the driver followed my explicit directions to move the car, an inch this way, a couple feet that way, turn left 15 degrees, forward a few more inches, until we were practically sideways in the ditch.  I kept shooting, enjoying the chance to fine-tune the perspective of the bird and the background, which are both equally important for the success of the shot.  Everyone in the car was so into it, they got out the recording equipment and began filming me photographing the bird.  It then turned into an interview for Apple, asking me questions about what I was doing and how I was feeling about the situation, all while I was trying to shoot!  And the bird stayed put!!  

It was a crazy hectic few minutes, which came to an end when the other cars from our group came driving back and flushed the kestrel.  They said the sunset shoot was no good and wondered how we did and why we never made it up there.  We just smiled and laughed and showed them the back of my camera.  Cheers and high fives all around!  

ZICK HERE:    This image delights me for many reasons. First, it was hard-won, the result of several days of trying. Second, although they were in Yellowstone National Park, stuffed with charismatic megafauna like grizzlies and elk, Bryan was holding to his modest bird-seeking goal, to the point of being the butt of everyone else's jokes. But as we saw with Morning Breath, holding to his goal is how he gets the best shots. And in holding to his goal, I believe, he's keeping a vision in his mind of what he's after. And here I'd submit that perhaps that vision in Bryan's mind was powerful enough to have been transmitted and received by the kestrel.

What if the kestrel got a picture from Bryan of himself sitting perfectly still and decided to do just that? Crazy, maybe, but who's to say that didn't happen here? Animals and birds don't think in words; they think in pictures. And I've had enough experiences of my own, with Chet Baker and other wild things, to tell me that they can send pictures to us, and receive them as well.  I've found that mind-pictures send particularly well when my mind is clear of all other clutter; when I'm focused completely on my vision. I'm pretty sure, looking at his work, that Bryan focuses down to a laser point. At that point, if my experience is any judge, he's likely to be transmitting messages to his subjects, whether he means to or not. It's fashionable to call someone who sends and receives messages from animals a "whisperer." However it's done, it's clear to me that something metaphysical passes between those who understand animals, and the creatures they work with.

A little hint in his own words: "I kept saying that I just needed to find the one bird that was willing to have his photo taken." One he could get close enough to connect with, perhaps.  

If you're intrigued by this notion, read Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin. And her pivotal book, Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior. Temple Grandin is well-known for giving us a picture of autism from the inside, from one whose mind works differently, and, where interpreting animal behavior is concerned, better than most people's. This is a book I should re-read every few years, to stay in better touch with the creatures I'm privileged to live with, and to better understand my fellow humans who have been grazed, touched, or subsumed by autism.

If you’re interested in purchasing this image, please contact Bryan Holliday for the details to make it happen.  He can be reached at bryanhollidayatgmaildotcom. (I've scrambled it to foil the spambots; just substitute a period for the dot, and an @ for the and, and off you go!)

More of Bryan’s work can be seen on his website at www.bryanholliday.com.