dinofelis's Favorites

The African Wood-Owl was seen at 1:15 on an old branch of our giant Strelitzia Nicolai and has been there until now, 7:13pm. It seems peaceful and settled. It is well hidden by the giant leaves and was observed when I was digging our compost into our heap. I could hear the little birds in the trees chirping in a way that seemed quite unsettled to me. As I looked around to see why they were chirping in this way, I looked into the eyes of this beautiful owl, perched amongst the leaves, about 2.5 meters away.

In wood chip landscaping. Mild mushroom odor and flavor. Cap extremely viscid!

Spores measure

(6.9) 7.2 - 8 (9) × (3.8) 4.1 - 4.7 (4.8) x (3.6) 3.9 - 4.4 (4.5) µm
Q = (1.6) 1.64 - 1.87 (1.9) ; N = 30
Me = 7.7 × 4.4 µm ; Qe = 1.7

A scrappy expanse of silky refuges and capture webs littered with body parts of previous victims. When preferred prey is entangled, the female spiders emerge from their 'nests' and overpower it by grabbing its extremities. In this case, a wasp https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319446.
Presumably they inject venom because after a minute or so the prey stops struggling. Then they snip it out of the web and carry it into one of several 'nests' or refuges.
Unwanted prey, often beetles (see https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319435 ) are also killed but sometimes left in the web, uneaten. Ants, in this case, Maranoplus ( https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319390 )scavenge around the periphery of the webs, feasting on unwanted beetles or other left-overs.

A Black Sparrowhawk pulling a Cormorant from the water. This is probably one of the most unusual sightings of my early birding hobby. Early morning, while taking photos of a Little Egret, I noticed it suddenly raising its crest in alarm and looking across the river. When I looked around it was directly into the sun but I could hear some kind of struggle in the water. I quickly focused my camera in the general direction. My limited, slow shutter snapped only 10 photos before it finally managed to pull the Cormorant from the water, with great difficulty I might add, and disappeared into the small forest along the dunes.

While doing homework on a bench, this chipmunk jumped on to see what I was doing. I let her take a look but she only got to the search bar and gave up. So I put on some of my chipmunk pictures for her to see. Posed for observation https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/129984459

Sammy (my dog) suddenly darted off full sprint after a Grysbok - called her off and she returned, being trailed by what looked like a dog (there was another couple about 300m away). However, this Grysbok/dog, emerged and definitely had pointy ears. Foolishly I took a picture, rather than leashing Sammy. It bowed in typical dog play invitation and darted off with Sammy in hot persuit, about 50m on it went under a pine log, and onto the next one, with Sammy going under both, at which the Caracal pounced after and chased Sammy (and I began thinking of what I would have to tell my wife about what happened to the dog) for about 80m before they reversed roles, and then the Caracal vanished: Sammy clearly thought that it had gone up a pine tree, barking and trying to climb up, but there was no sign of it there. Calling Sammy back, she returned (and was leashed) and there was some rustlings behind her, but the Caracal did not show itself again.
I presume it was a juvenile: I dont think an adult - which would probably have attacked Sammy rather than played.
All too fast for any decent photographs.

While walking in the veld on a quite afternoon with several family members , I heard a tiny meow coming from a nearby ant-mound. On inspection we found two tiny little kittens, still very young, huddled toward the back of the ant-mound!

Rough Greensnake catching an orbweaver spider. It got close to the web and then stayed there for what felt like 10 minutes (not sure it was waiting to figure out how to catch the spider or because I had disturbed it). After a while, it finally caught the spider and seemed to have no trouble eating it. My first time seeing a wild snake catch its prey!

I present to you: the largest dragonfly in the world, featuring my face for size comparison! :P Photos simply don't convey its sheer size and bulk but hopefully having something for comparison helps.

Anyway, story time! This guy was flying around erratically for at least an hour and a half since we arrived - I assume due to the missing wing half. I hadn't seen it myself but a couple of my friends had, and it somehow hit me in the side of the head and quickly flew off. :P
Anyway, while we were all chilling around the river, it decided to fly straight into the waterfall (in the background in pic 3) and was promptly swept downstream. What else could I do?? I jumped in and chased after it! 😂
As you can tell from the photos, my swim was successful, and I ended up with the most enormous dragonfly I have ever seen right before me. :P I can't even properly describe how enormously huge it was. And those amazing cerci! I gave it some time to dry off, but being humid tropical Queensland, it wasn't happening very quickly. It was more than happy to sit on my hand and so I wondered if it would prefer somewhere a bit higher and drier :P
So that is how it ended up on my face! As it dried and we were plagued by march flies, the obvious solution was to give him one to eat. He accepted it gratefully and somehow ate the entire thing in a single bite. Hopefully that goes a way into showing just how huge and formidable these guys are! Not content, he then sliced his huge mandibles into my nose -_- and had to be gently prized off. He slowly lapped up blood for a while after but luckily didn't do any more biting! If I squint in the mirror I can still see a faint line there now :P
He sat for about an hour before we had to leave and I left him on a shrub. I hope he was okay with half a wing missing, but there wasn't much else I could do. All in all one of the best experiences of my life! :D

First photo is by Haley Harding because I am incapable of taking selfies :P

1.0 REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA
1.1 Western Cape Province
Kirstenbosch National Botanic Garden, very common around flowering heaths, males, females and eclipse males, 170 m, photo, 25 March 2019. Male shown here in full plumage.