With 5 weeks left in term, there are a lot of different tasks to do – papers to research and write, projects to complete, exams to revise for. Yet, today especially, I have found myself daydreaming of what I’m most looking forward to during the two weeks I’ll have off between winter term and the start of spring semester, and right now, it’s having a nap! I’m looking forward to having a weekend where I spend some time like these lions 🙂
I ran out of day before I ran out of my to-do list, but thought one image was better than nothing. And if it is only going to be one, it better be of my very favourite 🙂
We came across a huge herd of elephants on the way back to camp after our morning game drive whilst staying at Kings Camp in the Timbavati; you can see we were well into the morning by the quality of light and the shadows, but it was too wonderful not to stop, even though the photo opportunities were a bit challenging. No matter where I looked, close to the vehicle or father off, there were elephants in every direction. A happy place indeed.
Now that February is ending, it won’t be long before it is time to bring in the feeders, as the birds start having better sources of food available. Mostly though, it’s to mitigate the risk of having bears close to the house; if I could, I would keep feeders out year round to watch the birds.
With the cold and damp, I’ve not spent much time outside snapping shots of the chickadees and pine siskins, so instead, I found some bird images I hadn’t worked through yet from my last trip. There is one mystery bird in there, that I didn’t write the name down when I saw them, but I am hoping a friend based in South Africa will be able to help me out – fingers crossed.
A grey go-away bird.Mystery birds – if anyone knows what these are, please let me know!A crested barbetA green wood-hoopoe catching a bit of shut eye.A coppery-tailed coucal
Lately I’ve picking a theme for the week; so far no one has complained about a few posts in a row about one sighting or a similar topic, and it makes it a lot easier for me editing with the limited time I can dedicate to that at the moment.
If you missed yesterday’s post, go back and check it out as it has a little story of this leopard and a few links to other posts where she was featured.
A few weeks ago I feature some images of a leopard on an impale kill (if you missed them, you can see them here). These images were shot about 10 – 15 minutes later in the morning; the leopard came out of the tree and relaxed in the grass a short distance away, and in short order, the cub came out of where it had been hiding to have a brief visit with Mom.
In the previous leopard post I mentioned that the sighting on the kill was a challenging one for one of the other guests, but thankfully as we decided to leave, the leopard decided to leave as well, so it wasn’t like we ended up missing out on a sighting. In fact, as the leopard moved from the tree to the grass where she met her cub, she had a bit of a stare down with a tracker on another vehicle, which was definitely a tense couple of moments (you can see that post here, with a few more images of these leopards).
Mom patiently waiting for the cub to come out of hiding.Such a wonderful greeting between mother and cub 🙂Mom is the first to head off.The cub was quick to follow!