Travel

Thursday Thoughts and Wordless too…

/ Leya / 30 kommentarer

My calendar is full these days – and I guess it’s the same with you… I have great difficulties in keeping up with everything.

Babysitting, and going with my son and the grandchildren to see a puppet theatre…

…then to a nunnery and castle for a great exhibition of Ukrainian quilt art.

As I have close contacts with Ukrainian friends, I admire their art, their resilience and ingenuity.

We had three major birthdays too in May!

I also met an Alien…

…and realized how much I love stripes…

…and beautiful skies!

You get the idea? My mind is reeling with thousands of things. We also have guests living here for some days. Even if I love having all these events around, deep down I am a person who loves silence and being on my own, doing my own things. I could easily live alone in a cottage – with a dog or cat.

Could you?

Lens-Artists Challenge #397 – Texture

/ Leya / 28 kommentarer

Anne leads us this week, with an interesting challenge: Texture. She says texture gives us the visual quality of a surface — how rough, smooth, gritty, or soft it appears in a two-dimensional image. Please go to her beautiful site for brilliant guidance!

I decided to use photos from our trip to Africa this February – a continent of many textures, both in animals, plants and landscape.

In this gallery I hope to have gathered a variey of African textures, mainly in animals. I hope you can ”feel” them! (Even if you may not really want to…)

Show us your images where texture plays an integral part. I think you will find they are more frequent than you thought! When you share your post, please remember to link it to Anne’s original post and use the Lens-Artists tag.

Last week I had great fun seeing your pairings with pictures and quotes! Many I had never seen before and many recognized but with new surprising combos. Thanks you to all who participated! Next week Ritva will be presenting the challenge. A visit to her site is always rewarding – In the meantime, stay safe and be kind!

Thursday Thoughts – The Lions

/ Leya / 26 kommentarer

We had been waiting for the lions for several days-

– and finally, they unveiled themselves. The wheat coloured high grass offered a perfect place to hide.

They were resting together in a group of five, and we were allowed to see them close-up. Beautiful, majestic animals. They did not seem to notice us at all, only the male in the header – who leaned his head backwards to look at our jeep. A rare meeting for me.

There were two females and three males. They looked young all of them.

Lions don’t have many enemies, but they too are afflicted by ticks, and we were warned before we did the savanna walk. In Sweden many of us are vaccinated, as the TBE is a widely spread tick-borne disease and can severely afflict your brain. You can even die from it.

Lions are such beautiful big cats, our respect for them is great. They looked so calm and relaxed lying there together in the grass,

…but only some days before, this zebra must have had a narrow escape, maybe from a lion. I guess he had defended his heard. Successfully…I hope.

Living on the savanna is not easy. For us, short visitors, it is an adventure. Thank you for coming along today, meeting the big cats – and their prey. I find zebras mezmerisingly beautiful, like pieces of art, and I think scientists still don’t exactly know why they have their stripes or how they use them.The leading theory seems to be Biting Fly Repellent. Flies cannot easily land on striped things as the pattern disturbes their ability to navigate properly.

Next week I will tell you about the two cheetah brothers. We met them twice.

Thursday Thoughts – Fighting Poachers

/ Leya / 17 kommentarer

On the reserve where we stayed, they had a powerful program to save the rhinos from poachers. According to the ranger who checked them up every day, driving around in her jeep, they had only lost two rhinos the last years, which is amazing. Instead of taking away their horns, they use radioactive isotopes – that do not harm the animal.

Klicka för att komma åt The-Rhisotope-Project.pdf

One of the rhinos was a bastard with a white rhino as the mother and a black rhino as the father. In fact, he is the only one in the world – according to the rangers. As he cannot have any offspring, he might be the last one ever.

On top of this mountain, they raised the orphans – before releasing them into the reserve again. They do not reveal how many rhinos they have in the reserve…which is good.

We were lucky to see quite some of them, both white and black ones, going about their daily chores as well – such as scrubbing their stomach against termite stacks and mud rolling.

Finishing off with the wonderful ranger who had dedicated her whole life to the rhinos, and a phone photo from our guide, taken while passing by our outdoor picnic place…(where we used to sit peacefully at the tables – luckily without rhinos!) Thank you, Conni, for sending me those spectacular shots!

Macro Monday – Golden Orb Spider

/ Leya / 15 kommentarer

I admit it is elegant and beautiful… about 50mm body and at least 50mm legs.

The female is a giant and the male a dwarf in comparison. Several males can sit in the web, waiting for an opportunity to mate. If they move too fast though, they will be her prey instead of her lover.

Leaving a line of waste is done to protect the net from birds flying into it.

Spiders are not my favourite animals, but our ranger’s story made it fascinating. Their bite is harmless and comparable to a bee sting. Their webs are strong enough to stop small birds in mid-flight. The silk is as strong as Kevlar, which is the strongest known man made material.

Lens-Artists Challenge #393 – Lucky Shot

/ Leya / 33 kommentarer

Sophia has a fun challenge in store for us – lucky shots we have saved, either while photographing or while editing. Please go to her lovely site for great inspiration!

When flying in to Victoria Falls, we saw the pillar of water drops rising from the river and falls up in the sky. And, I did not have a window seat… that’s why this photo is such a lucky shot!

Arriving at the gates, we were welcomed by Pumba himself.

I loved the kudus with their big ears and beautiful faces. Back home, at the computer, I found a bird sitting between the ears of this female, naturally there were some sitting on her back too.

Home again, a summer some 7-8 years ago, we had planned ”fika” at this table. But when we got there, it was already taken…

Ten years ago, in our garden, I was lucky enough to catch a series of our neighbour’s cat raiding two magpies’ nests. I could hardly believe my eyes – or my luck! 6 photos show it all.

Finally, an old, well used photo of my favourite dogs. Sweet memories.

Mille and Totti always had fun together – this quick shot, (on the computer) showed young Totti giving a full head blow to his old friend Mille.

With children and animals, you can always get lucky and surprising pictures!

Thank you, Sofia, for a great challenge! And thank you to Patti for enlightening us on the three layers! A good teacher and many excellent answers!

Thursday Thoughts – Birds, birds, birds!

/ Leya / 24 kommentarer

Among the many African treats were the beautiful birds. Here is a collage of: Striated Heron, Hadada ibis, Southern Banded Snake Eagle, Lesser Blue-eared Starling, European Roller, Bee-eaters, Magpie Shrike, Egyptian Goose and Lilac breasted Roller.

The glossy starlings were everywhere – shining beauties. Bee-eaters were also frequent.

I really loved all the birds, for their colours and for them being easily spotted in trees and on twigs on the savanna. I’ll finish with two charming couples that caught my heart:

The Southern Yellow-billed Hornbills (flying bananas according to our ranger…) and the Southern Carmine Bee-eaters. The Hornbills came very close and seemed to seek our company, and the bee-eaters flew through the soft air like sparkling jewels.

April is the month when our migrating birds return to nest. I am looking forward to welcoming them – their nesting boxes are ready for new families! In fact the last two or three years we’ve had bee-eaters too in Skåne, the southernmost part of Sweden. At least something good with the warmer climate.