But thankfully we still had some sunlight.
So, I got some random shots including birds and butterflies, before the rain arrived.
We have very quick weather changes here in the valley between the mountains and the sea. 6 kilometers from our house to the mountain range might sound far, but a strong wind can transport the clouds over the distance in few minutes. Western Cape weather changes drastically from day to day, and the last few days feel like winter has arrived again. This used to be a winter rainfall area, but it looks like climate change is making it a summer and winter rainfall area. We will monitor it over the next years, but we have already noticed a huge change over the past three or four years.
I had to take some shots in a hurry, and I hope that you will like them.
I don't get this bird often as it normally moves around stealthily under cover. It is a female African Paradise Flycatcher (Terpsiphone viridis). The male has a very long tail, and I will search for a male to show you.
There are many paradise flycatcher species and in the source link, you can see some of them. Beautiful birds.
Paradise flycatchers, like all monarch flycatchers, are monogamous and are generally territorial, although in some cases birds may nest close together and defend the nests together against predators. Females apparently select males based on their tail length, a form of sexual selection. Paradise flycatchers are unusual as exaggerated sexual traits are usually found in promiscuous birds, not monogamous ones.
The paradise flycatchers have the widest distribution of any of the monarch flycatchers, ranging across sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and East Asia. At the northern extreme of its range it reaches Korea and Afghanistan. The species also occurs on a number of islands, including those of Indonesia and the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan, as well as Madagascar, the Mascarenes and the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean and São Tomé off Africa's Atlantic coast.
By now you should all know that the 2 photos below are of a Malachite sunbird (Nectorinia famosa). This guy was keeping an eye on their nest. Mommy and Daddy sunbird are feeding again, and we also keep an eye to check that all is well. Hoping the weather will be better when the baby has to leave the nest. Will keep you posted.
Don't worry Daddy, we are keeping an eye too for you all.
Of course I kept an eye on the cloud build-up in the east.
Here below I have 3 shots of a very small butterfly on some tiny flowers.
This looks like a Geranium Bronze (Cacyreus marshalli).
The big or the small, in nature they all serve a purpose. Small butterflies can pollinate flowers exactly the same as the big butterflies do.
This is a later shot of the tag picture
And then the time arrived for us to leave.
My wife reckons that if I continue to get wet in the rain, then I will start to grow flat webbed feet like the geese :D
But I think that Mother nature likes to catch me off guard, as at times I tend to get the rain clouds speed of arrival totally wrong, and then I get totally drenched. But my main concern is to keep my camera dry, and fortunately it has a rain cover. In my younger days it was rather fun traipsing around in the rain and mist, but now that I am way past pensioner age, things are not so easy, or fun anymore.
Such is life.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.
Photos by Zac Smith-All-Rights-Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
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