Black Heron

I was sitting at a picnic spot minding my own business when this Heron asked me to take its picture to send home to its family. It is called Black Heron, well, because it is black. Its feet are bright yellow. One wonders why nature developed it with those bright yellow feet.

I was photographing this Squacco Heron waiting for it to do something. When they sit around doing nothing they do exactly that – nothing. They have the ability to just sit there and watch the world go by. Wish I had the comfort and patience to sit like that. It may have noticed me peering at it through my camera. At some stage it stared straight at me, perhaps waiting for me to do something rather than just sitting there watching the world go by. Eventually it scratched its head before moving off, presumably to find something to eat.
Squacco Herons are about 45 cm in height, are waders and live on fish, frogs and insects

Jacaranda Trees

One of the Jacaranda lined streets in Johannesburg South Africa. These trees form part of what is regarded as the biggest man made forest in the world. Johannesburg is on what is known as the highfeld - what used to be grass land. Settlers planted trees along streets and next to their houses creating a forest that impacted on rain fall patterns. See http://www.coismeyer.com for more of my pictures.

Sun circle

I photographed these sun circles in Johannesburg during October 2010. Light from the sun gets refracted by ice particles high up in the sky. It is not something that we see frequently in Johannesburg.

Elephant balanced

This Elephant likes the new growth on the trees surrounding his enclosure. His enclosure is surrounded by a concrete lined trench rather than a re-enforced fence. He has stripped the leaves back almost as far as he can reach. This picture shows him balanced on the edge of the trench leaning over the trench to reach out as far as he possibly can. Amazing to see an animal of this size balanced this delicately. Go to http://www.coismeyer.com/ for more of my pictures.