nature photography

“Discovered”

| Nature on the Edge

“Stats” haven’t really been too much of a motivation for me, that is until this past week when my site unexpectedly started ‘pinging’.    Topics relating to the Cape Storm got great press pushing up the visitor numbers to an all time high.   Then came a further boost with a shout out from Ben Huberman on Discover: Editor’s picks.

I feel quite overwhelmed by the response and would like to post a hearty welcome to all the new followers.

Baby baboon hi

To Ben and the WordPress team,  i send a big thank you and a gift of virtual flowers – protea repens.  The birds love them for their rich sugary nectar and are also known as the sugarbush protea.

Sugar bush protea

 

Rain: 1.6% rise in Cape Town’s dam levels

Baboons huddling together to keep warm.
| Nature on the Edge

The welcome rain continues to bring relief to the parched veld and urban gardens.  Within days new shoots are greening up and animals appear to be coping, if not revelling in the fresh rainwater.  Though we have a long way to go before the strict water restrictions can be eased.

Interesting to note the animals’ fur ‘fluffled up’ to create thermoregulation which helps to insulate and retain body heat.

Baboons huddling together to keep warm.

 

Eerie

| Nature on the Edge

The riggish scent of the sea hangs strongly in the air; there’s a chill wind and I feel uncomfortable as a strange and creepy feeling envelopes the beach strewn with storm detritus and mounds of kelp. In the distance lies “The Log” a casualty from some long ago episode when it washed ashore to lie abandoned and forlorn.   This is a hostile place for ships when the Cape is battered by the huge breaking Atlantic swells.  Just off this beach lie four shipwrecks and some say that the ghost ship “The Flying Dutchman” still plies these waters…..

WPC: Focus

The storm brings a feast for Cape baboons

| Nature on the Edge

Two days have passed since the storm and the sandy beach where I photographed the galloping zebra has altered in the aftermath. Today it is strewn with huge piles of kelp,  dislodged by the powerful waves and borne in on the spring high tide.

The sandy beach
Kelp washed ashore after the storm

The kelp brought with it a bonanza for the baboons, a feast of  mussels still attached to the fronds.  The baboons living along the coast supplement their diet with this highly nutritious resource which is rich in omega oils.  They tucked in with gusto, and I noticed that some of the older females had packed their cheek pouches until they bulged into hanging pouches.  There was a lot of ‘chatter’ as they sucked and chewed and a delightful sound of ‘hiccups’ as one greedy adult male gulped down the morsels far too quickly.