When we were small we used to find chameleons in the garden all the time, but that was then and this is now. These days I don't get to see them anywhere as much as I would like to, so it was a big surprise to find this little guy on the stoep of the Protea Hotel Tsitsikamma Village in Storms River the other day. I was really scared that somebody would step on him, so I picked him up…
The plaque on the Donkin Pyramid reads: To the memoryof one of the most perfectof human beingswho has given her nameto the Town belowThese were the words of Sir Rufane Donkin in remembering his wife when he named Port Elizabeth after her.
The Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Memorial is situated on Cannon Hill overlooking Uitenhage
The last in the Big 5 series is the Cape Buffalo. Buffalo are normally found in big herds while old bulls lead a solitary life. Buffalo are grazers and mostly found in the open. The buffalo in the Addo Elephant National Park is, or was, a bit different. Due to the fact that they were so extensively hunted in the late 1800's and early 1900's, they turned nocturnal. They only came out during the evenings and spent their days in…
My personal favorite of the Big 5 is the leopard. Quick but silent, strong but stealthy, the perfect killing machine. If it is leopards you want to see the best place to go would be up north towards Kruger Park. The leopards in the Eastern Cape is smaller and shyer than their northern cousins and are rarely seen in our game reserves. One or two of the game reserves may turn up a leopard sighting every now and then, with…
The other day while working in the garden I found this tiny little (baby) praying mantis. Here he is sitting on the knuckles of my fingers. The mantis is a predator of other insects. The females chews off the head of the male during mating (I am so glad I'm not a mantis) and than lay her eggs in a frothy egg case from which the young hatch. The young looks like big ants with a large up curving abdomen.…
Staying on the Big 5 series, today's animal is probably the one that most tourists would like to see in the wild. The lion is always referred to as the king of the jungle. Groups are normally made up of female and young with a dominant male hanging around. Other males would live in small groups and from time to time a male would challenge the dominant male for his position. The hunting in the groups are done by the…
A couple of baby ostriches at one of the ostrich farms just outside Oudtshoorn
Today I feature the rhino in my Big 5 series. There are two kinds of rhino. The White Rhino (pictured above) as well as the Black Rhino. The difference between the two has nothing to do with colour. Black rhinos are generally smaller and more aggressive than their cousins. They are browsers and generally live in the bush. White rhinos are grazers and is just about always found in the open. The Dutch called them the Wide mouth rhino and…
Flowers growing next to the old toll house on the Montagu Pass near George I am currently on the Garden Route on a business trip (with a borrowed camera in hand as mine is still in for repairs) so I am hoping to get some opportunities to take a couple of nice pics of the area to post in the near future.