Category: quota photo

Bird Fight II – The Big Boys

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I recently shared a photo that my son had taken of a dispute on our cottage bird table. But here’s another image of some birds fighting. Bigger birds.

This one was taken (as you can likely see) by Carin Malan, and is posted here with her permission (thanks, Carin). The “little” bird on the left is a Tawny Eagle (wingspan 1-7 – 2.0m!), and a proper big boy, a White-Backed Vulture (2.1-2.3m) is on the right.

What an amazing action shot. The explosive dust really adds to it.

We don’t get either of these birds down in the Western Cape, which is just as well: the bird table would never cope.

Tube

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It’s been a while since I did a quota photo post, but here one (or even two) quota photos come right now:

This poster tube came our way a while ago (long, uninteresting story), and I just liked how battered and well worn it was. It seemed silly not to use the opportunity to snap a couple of atmospheric pics.

As for the address, it turns out to be one of SA’s most famous brick and ceramics companies, built upon the high quality clay fields near Olifantsfontein in Gauteng. Those clay fields were discovered when siting and building of the railways was taking place in the 1890s and soon afterwards in 1896, the Consolidated Rand Brick, Pottery and Lime Company was set up by diamond magnate Sir Thomas Cullinan. Thus the business became colloquially known as Cullinan Brick.

Sadly, I have no idea when the poster tube was sent to Mnr Schalk van Wyk or what was in it, but it has now made its way safely back to its owner.

Well halo there

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The weird, pre-frontal weather continues here in Cape Town. Today, it’s 27oC with a gale force Northeasterly wind. There were already leaves everywhere, this being the end of the autumn, but now they’re all over the house as well.

And looking up, this huge halo around the sun. This isn’t because the sun is particularly angelic: it’s actually a fairly common phenomenon due to ice crystals in the earth’s upper atmosphere.

Halos around the sun or moon are said to be a sign of approaching bad weather, which fits for us in Cape Town today: indeed, I’ll be getting a quick braai in this evening, using some of the offcuts from the big wooden boat that our neighbour is building. And because these halos are due to the ice in high, thin cirrus or stratocirrus clouds, which do often appear before bad weather, this seems reasonable. However, high, thin cirrus or stratocirrus clouds can also appear before any other sort of weather too, so perhaps this phenomenon only portends stormy conditions when its observers choose to remember the times that it was actually accurate.

Quota canary

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Zero sleep last night. Bit under the weather today (no, not that). And a busy evening.

So please accept a quota Cape Canary from the summer as today’s post.

It’s been a thoroughly miserable day in Cape Town today. Grey, damp and drizzly.
So, lazy though this is, it’s still nice to have a bit of colour on an otherwise dour day.

More tomorrow.