Not really much going new around the house so after a brief comment on the big news of the week I’ll get straight to the images.
Big news is…of course…the Trump trial up in NY. As I’ve stated before…more than once…we aren’t fans of the man in any way, shape or form…and he should not be elected in November…and the same holds true of the current President…he also should not be elected in November. Unfortunately…Neil’s idea that None of the Above should be on the ballot and if None wins there needs to be a new election and those people can’t run again…well, hasn’t taken root so we’ll be stuck with one of them.
I know he’s been pretty antagonistic to just about everybody involved…and he’s the one to blame for that. However…in some respects he does have a point. The trial is being held in a deeply blue, progressive area…where just about nobody likes him. And at least from the outside the judge and prosecutor seems to be trying to dismiss any person who might have the slightest idea that the charges need to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. So…his claims of a biased jury and judge have some merit although a lot of the judge’s statements probably have to do with the irresponsible and completely inappropriate comments he’s making on social media. Add in the fact that…based on what we’ve seen so far…making the charges felonies instead of misdemeanors because there was an underlying crime…well, that seems pretty farfetched to me since no other crime has been charged by either federal or state authorities, no indication of what that crime might be, and can the state even use a non existent federal crime to upgrade the charges. Seems to me that…either at trial or on appeal…the charges are likely to get downgraded to misdemeanors unless the jury simply acquits because the evidence doesn’t support felony convictions.
My personal thought is that the man simply cannot get a fair trial in NYC and probably can’t get one just about any other place either. Every person in America has already made up their minds about the man…and I fear that hatred or worship of the man depending on your point of view will certainly influence your vote for conviction or not simply based on that and not any actual evidence (or lack thereof).
Ok, enough of that…let’s have some images. All of these are from the first day in the bush…either from the late morning drive over to their firs camp or the afternoon game drive.
Fair warning though…lots of images in this and subsequent posts on the trip.
Giraffe with some unknown bird the was feasting on the insects on it’s skin.
Same giraffe from a wider angle…both of these were taken as we approached the camp in the late morning.
Banded mongoose we saw in the morning…there are some better shots of them on a later day.
White Storks.
Dark Chanting-Goshawk…one of the many raptor type birds we saw.
One of the many kopje (pronounced ko-pee with a long o) formations we found…they’re volcanic in origin but nobody knew why they were just randomly produced or whether the whole area was lava and erosion reduced most of them to dirt. They range from 10 to 125 feet high or so and from 50 yards to miles apart. They’re essentially a pile of rocks with a lot of nooks and crannies in them where a lot of wildlife makes their home to stay away from predators or to protect young. Known as Koppie in Afrikans language in South Africa.
Rúppell’s Starling
Yellow billed Oxpecker…this one is sitting on the back of a Cape buffalo. It’s a robin sized bird.
And the same bird down under pecking on insects…our driver Ellison said they pecked on sores and ate the blood coming out as well.
Cape Buffalo
Lilac Breasted Roller…prettiest bird we saw and we spent a lot of time trying (and eventually succeeding) in catching one in flight to better show off the plumage.
Wildebeest…it’s in the antelope family. They sometimes walk in a long single file (we saw one that was probably 2 miles long) but most of the time they sort of lope/half trot along in a big herd and are found in company with zebras a lot.
Zebra…they’re in the same general family as horses but you can’t ride them as their spines are too weak.
Another giraffe.
Warthog…didn’t get a whole lot of really good shots of these as I recall…but with 32,000 images to cull through there might be some better ones that I forgot.
Giraffe pair in what’s known as High Key where the background is blown out…one of my few dalliances into artsy-fartsy images…but the sky was blown out anyway so this seemed like a good use of the shot. The horn looking things on a giraffe’s head are called Ossicones…fur covered bony spurs. They’re used for mating fights along with slamming their necks into the neck of their rivals.
This is actually the High Key version…they’re done in black and white vice color, but the above was the actual color in the sky that day so the B&W presentation is a bit different.
Different pair of giraffes.
Pair of mated Secretary Birds…so named because of the feathers around the neck. Sort of a cross between a raptor and a crane in body style. First shot is the male (we think) who returned to the nest first with some nesting material.
Acacia trees…the prototypical Serengeti image…but there are actually some 50something kinds of acacia trees, many of which don’t have the stereotypical shape. That’s a termite mound in between them. The king and queen termites live about 50 years and the remainder of the colony is divided into 4 or 5 types…when the royalty dies the remaining ones abandon the mound in groups along with a type known as queens to be to establish new mounds. The abandoned one becomes home to other wildlife…mongoose being the most popular new residents.
Our first elephant herd…this is the matriarch of the group…they consist of all females and juvenile males, the latter get kicked out at sexual maturity and are only around for mating purposes later on…males typically hang out in a males only herd. This female has a broken and malformed tusk. We stopped our vehicles as the herd approached and the other vehicle was in front of us…the herd passed pretty close to both vehicles, within 20 feet in many cases…there were about 50ish in this herd which is basically a family group.
And one of the young’ins sprouting some tiny tusks already.
Matriarch and her calf…one can clearly see her still nursing breasts just behind the left foreleg. This calf was a few months old according to Ellison
White Rumped Shrike…probably a mated pair.
Zebra herd…we went past this for about 5 minutes and it probably had 3000 or more animals in it.
Black Winged Lapwing…again we spent a lot of time trying to get flight shots.
Northern Shrike…very similar to the Northern Shrike we have in the US.
Our first lioness…she and her cohorts in her pride were mostly wanting to sleep off dinner…except this one was probably nearing being in heat as the male showed up and was pretty possessive of her. Maybe 20 feet away.
Hooded vultures…hanging out very near to the kill that resulted in sleepy lioness.
Hooded vulture and the remains of the zebra that was the lion’s previous meal…about 50 yards from where they were sleeping.
The male of the pricer…stereotypical pose at a distance and then a portrait from about 20 feet.
Carefully eyeing us to make sure we weren’t a threat.
The hooded vulture in B&W.
Getting on to sunset with acacia trees.
The male from the previous shots about 30 minutes later…it was really getting dark…this shot was at 1/125 of a second at 840mm focal length…thank goodness for a beanbag on the truck to rest the camera on and 20 frames per second so that one of them would be in critical sharp focus. There’s a little blur on his tongue as it was the only thing moving…and you can see scars on his back from some previous altercation. After this shot they gave up and headed for camp as it was almost dark and ISO was getting ridiculous…this one was ISO 20,000 or so but luckily modern noise reduction software hugely helps with eliminating noise caused by the high ISO.
We caught the first of a bunch of really beautiful sunsets on the way home to camp…the actual sunset tonight wasn’t all that great but about 15 or 20 minutes later they caught a break in the clouds illuminated by the sun setting on the left about 90 degrees. Neil just happened to glance over and see this and yelled for the driver to stop for this 100mm or so focal length shot
Just a couple of Interesting things found on the net for ya today…already a long post.
Southerners will appreciate this one.
And the longest place name in New Zealand…85 characters long…this is a hill there named Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu.
Cyas.