Just Hanging Around The House

I haven't been doing any traveling lately. I am trying to get over a bad knee injury. So, I have just been hanging around the house. That seems boring and it would be, except hanging around the house in Africa is really quite a different experience.

This guy has been living around my home for most of his life. This is a male and he is the boss of his breed in this neighborhood. He knows me well and that affords me lots of photo opportunities.

One day a small group of elephants showed up at my pond/dam/lake depending on where you are from. I decided to sneak out to my bird hide for a better photo op. That was a bad idea. The elephant was headed for a tasty tree limb right next to the hide. I couldn't get a photo. He was so close I could have reached out and touched him. I realized all he had to do was push the hide over into the dam and that would be that. I sat there and just held my breath.

As I looked out the other porthole in the hide I saw my crocodile was thinking along the same lines.

The elephant turned out to me a gentle giant. He knew I was there but he just went along his business with out ever getting aggressive. He left and I hung around for this photo of this water bird gulping down a small fish.

This isn't a two headed snake. It is a baby python that crawled into my bird bath waiting for a bird to show up.

 This is a typical bird that frequents the bird bath. Some other species nest right over the bath. It does make for a perfect ambush scenario.

This is a banded Mongoose. He belongs to a friend of mind. The snake is a small Cobra he managed to catch and devour.

Another snake eater is this Honey Badger. Pound for pound they are the badest guys in town. They will even take on a lion.

This is a puff adder. I took him out of a friends jogging machine. We released him away from the house. Honey Badgers will eat them on sight. Not 100% immune to their poison, they do have the ability to recover from a bite and carry on as though nothing happened at all.

Giraffes are as common around the house as rabbits. Sometimes as many at 10 show up and just munch everything in sight. They can reach over our fence and sample any tree they like. They become accustomed to people and will let you walk right up next to them.

Porcupines are ever present around our home. This one we raised from a baby. He has never forgotten us and comes over for snacks about 3 times a week.

Getting a close up of him is easy.

I placed these palm trunks in trees around the house. They make great nesting places for a large variety of birds. This was an exceptional brood. Four adult birds raised four chicks in the same nest at the same time. I have never heard of that before.

This was a photo op I couldn't pass up.

Chameleons are found all over the property. They will stay in a tree for weeks. They are territorial and will defend their tree against other Chameleons.

This old bull was a good friend of mine. He is a Water Buck. He would visit me often. He would just stand at the gate staring into the house. I would walk out the gate within a meter of him. He would follow me to the trailer where I keep lucerne/alfalfa. I could feed him by hand. Unfortunately he was killed in a fight with another bull. That is very rare but it does happen. They other bull also died of his wounds. I really miss the interaction I had with him over the years.

This is a spotted bush snake. They are very common and often wind up in the house hanging from some light fixture. They are completely harmless and eat small lizards.

These Bush Babies are nocturnal. If you leave a slice of banana in a tree they will become your best friends. They are super fast and very difficult to photograph.

These are wild dogs. They come around from time to time. This group was resting in my front yard. I got in my truck and parked next to them. These photos were pure luck. I was just in the right place at the right time.

This Bush Buck wasn't in my yard. I took this photo in the park just a few minutes from the house. He was just too beautiful to pass up. I thought you would enjoy seeing him.

Well so much for hanging around the house. I hope to be at traveling again before long. All the best and have a great week. These photos are suppose to enlarge if you click on them. I said suppose to!

Elephant Seals of California

The Elephant Seal of California was nearly wiped out due to uncontrolled hunting and commercial harvesting. Today they are VERY protected. The seals have made an extraordinary recovery. There are literally thousands now. The bulls are very easily distinguishable from the females by the huge appendage on their face.

Everyone has seen the bloody fights between bulls on National Geographic or Animal Planet. I never saw anything like that here. The fights were brief and to the point. Males shared the females and the beach. I never witnessed the BEACH MASTER brawls that I watched on TV.

The bulls seemed more interested in the girls than the fights. I never saw a dead baby or injured seal. It may have been the luck of the draw or maybe the bulls don't really fight as savagely or as often in this area.

This bull has obviously fallen in love with this little number. The females are much smaller than the bulls.

Another thing I observed was the fact that females feed any youngster that wants a drink! I always thought the females would reject a baby that wasn't theirs. This wasn't true in this colony.

These pups took turns at the nipple while mom was out like a light!

The males are definitely the stars of the show. They are huge!

As they arrive, they make their presence know. This is their classic stance, bellowing as loud as a car horn. This alerts other bulls that they are here to stay. They apparently know each other by sight and sound. This limits the need for fighting every bull that comes ashore. The younger bulls are chased away immediately.

The neighborhood looks something like this!

This bull is sizing up the competition.

The seascapes are beautiful. The vistas are in every direction for as far as the eye can see.

These two fat females look as though they has a lot of gossiping to catch up on. I never saw two females fight.

All along the shore there were beautiful flowers with humming birds taking advantage of the nectar on nearly every bush. Here are some examples.

Ground squirrels were everywhere. They practically ran over your feet. They obviously had no fear of humans.

The scenery was great. The seals were fantastic to watch. Unfortunately I feel ill on this trip and had to cut it short. I am, however, back in the saddle and looking towards my next adventure.

Until then keep smiling and remember "on this beach, size really does matter".