Miniscule

Today's wonder:

I love the see-through wings, the delicate blue body, and the diversity of nature in general.

How elegant!

I seem to be flabbergasted at how beautifully diverse nature is on a daily basis. 

 I noticed this bird for the first time this morning. 

I have no idea what it can be and can't look it up on the Internet, since my connection is bush-slow these days. I'll come back with identification if and when learned (and connected) friends or readers help me put a name on this elegant specimen.

I did some research using Google image (ghana+bird) and a list of birds seen in Shai Hills Nature Reserve, a stone throw from where I am, and came up with a possible I crossed checked with Google image again (using the scientific name) and www.oiseaux.net, until I was quite satisfied I was on the right track: meet the White-throated Bee-eater / Merops albicollis / Guêpier à gorge blanche.

A mild case of phobia and other stories

"You wanted to see me up close?", says the bird. "Here I am, then."

This morning, coming back home from an errand, I realised that if there was a bird on the burglarproof bar in the kitchen, it meant it was IN the kitchen, since there is a mosquito net on the far side of the bars. A quick investigation (without venturing too close, I am sort of afraid of birds) revealed this red bird I was trying to identify recently. I quickly grabbed my camera and voilà!

My previous hypothesis of a bar breasted firefinch may have been wrong: I was unable to verify the characteristic white dots on its breast.

Walking past

Living in the bush without fence means that all sorts of two- and four-legged beings cross our land. I consider it only my right to snap their picture when they do so, even if the law may differ.

This morning my 3 dogs (two chained, one crated) started making an awful racket all of a sudden. I went outside to investigate and saw 3 young boys with their dogs, apparently taking a shortcut to their farm or the next village. The opportunity was too good to pass.

Miracles of lasagna gardening

Because I'm too lazy to do proper compost and I also fail to see why I should put so much work into something when doing nothing will garner me the same result, I've fallen in love with lasagna gardening. Because I'm too negligent to do it right, it ended up being (in 7 easy steps):

1. Choose a place in your garden where you would like things to grow.

2. Arrange a few stones gathered on the spot around the said place (mostly to remember where it was).

3. Dump the bucket with all kitchen organic waste in such place once a week (or more often if the kitchen tells you it's time to get the bucket out) and spread loosely.

4. Add about the same volume of black soil (that's how we call here whatever is supposed to be more fertile than the more widespread clay or laterite or sand - clay in my case); spread loosely.

5. Don't do anything. This is the rainy season, so watering is unnecessary. Sit back and relax.

6. Visit the place now and then, to see what's happening.

7. If nothing happens after, say, 3 weeks, repeat the process from step 3.

After a few weeks of this (hard) "work", here is what I have in patch No. 1.

The big green leaves are watermelon. I bought one for my partner, who loves it (I don't), but forgot it in the fridge. I just dumped it behind the house when it started getting mouldy. Although the leaves are plenty and cover the soil nicely, I can't get very excited about them.

The brownish green leaves in between are a complete different story. The mango season has started and, living in mango country (mango orchards as far as the eye can see and beyond), we gorge ourselves with them. To the point of becoming quite picky about which variety is best. My conclusion is that a certain medium sized, yellow with bright red 'cheeks' variety and a characteristic beak are the best I've ever eaten. You don't have to chew. You just put it in your mouth and it melts in it. Like a ripe avocado pear, only so much better because, of course, it's mango, and it's juicy, and it's sweet, and it's full of flavour.

So yes, I'm extremely excited to have THREE of the pits I threw there growing already. Isn't life beautiful?

Wildlife we could do without...

All is not rosy in the bush. There are ticks. A lot. And they carry sickness. Even when you treat your dogs regularly, they can still be prey to these nasty things, and get infected.

Here are Taki and Smartie, twin brothers, 11+ year old; one got infected, the other didn't. It's quite visible who did...

Poor Smartie lost about 15% of his weight in a week. The vet made 4 injections one day (I couldn't even follow which was what...) and put him on a drip the next day. I tried to bribe him with interesting food for a couple more days, and he seems now to be eating normally again.

Cattle bliss

More often than not, the beauty of my environment amazes me. I've developped a liking for cows. All sorts of cows. And it's lucky too, since we are in cattle country here.

Our little installation is still in place. I would have loved to catch a cow or two coming closer to snif around the unusual display, but this is the best they had to offer today.

These animals come in all combinations of colours and patterns. This spotted one seems spray-painted (with a bag on its head to keep it white?). I love the shape of the horns, and the way it moves too.

An impressive male in a somewhat unusual posture.

I particularly like these white cows with a black muzzle and inner ears. In this season, there are a lot of calves, looking tender and almost fragile, despite their already respectable size. Again, I'm quite happy with the tail and leg movement I was able to catch.

I usually don't take pictures of people, but the herdsman looked so postcard-typical, with his stick across his shoulders, that I couldn't help following him. Again, composition, even if purely fortuitous, is what pushed me to press on the button: the bird, erect in the forefront, echoes the herdman's slender figure, and the two massive cattle in the background somehow matching/offsetting the vertical subjects... What do you think? 

Details that make you wonder

Some time ago I took a series of pictures of baobab trees (some of which are here). There were meant to show how impressive these savannah giants were, and I didn't go into too much detail, but something puzzled me at the time, and I still find it quite extraordinary.

On the trunk of this tree:

I saw what looked like warts, and looking closer, realised that a branch seemed to be growing out of each of these nodules. 

Strange and intriguing, don't you think?

Art in the bush

It all started with a few chairs left outside that looked like a deliberate installation.

Then, the installation idea grew on us to include stretchers...

... and fully fledged works.

This one is a "cloth on cloth" work by Ghanaian visual artist Tei Huagie.

A golf course at Baboonland?

You would think so. But you would be wrong.

These are mushrooms. Perfect, spherical, mushrooms.

These ones are more "conventional" in shape, but come as a surprise too, because of their colour which makes them almost invisible until you've almost stepped on them.

Wonderful nature...

Did you say dull?

Whoever said (or thought) that living in the bush is dull should give it a second look. Really.

After publishing pictures of yellow, then blue, birds, I'm completing the primary colours series with red.

It took me about 2 weeks to have a camera handy when these beautiful little creatures came to grace my property (usually early in the morning, at breakfast), and another two days to get decent pictures.

But my patience and persistence were rewarded with what I think is both the male (colourful) and the female (yellowish/greenish brown with a black tipped red tail) of the species.

Again, I'll need help to identify them, and will add the name when I have it.

I'm still undecided. It may be a bar-breasted firefinch (Lagonosticta rufopicta, Amarante pointé) like the ones I saw when I was living in town (http://ghana-outdoors.blogspot.com/2008/12/red-throated-visitor.html), but it may also be any of the other reddish Lagonosticta varieties. Maybe they'll oblige tomorrow or later and allow me to see them up close. In the meantime, I'll go with probabilities and say it is the same as those I identified a few years ago.

Almost a month later... I'm still undecided, and haven't seen the "bar" on the breast, so I'd lean towards an African Firefinch / Lagonosticta rubricata / Amarante foncé. But... it doesn't have a blue bill, which is said to be characteristic. But then again, not all the African Firefinches I've seen on the Internet did. So... Let's keep trying to get a better sighting.

Astonishingly blue bird...

I've seen this bird before around the places where I lived pre-Baboonland, but I'd never been able to take pictures of it. The metallic blue-green feathers are quite extraordinary!

A couple of days ago, we were visited by two of these outstanding animals:

The yellow inquisitive eye is almost a bit unsettling... And here the beast seems almost menacing!

I'll ask for help identifying this extraordinary bird and will add the information as soon as I get it. (my connection is quite slow and whimsical, so I need friends to do research for me at times. Living in the bush is not 100% perfect, but what is, in our world?)

After consulting a knowledgeable friend and a few online resources, I've come to the conclusion that it is probably a Greater Blue-eared Starling / Lamprotornis chalybaeus / Choucador à oreillons bleus.

Another source, much closer to home since it was birding notes from scholars (?) visiting Shai Hills Nature Reserve a stone throw from our place, identify this as a Purple (glossy) Starling / Lamprotornis purpureus / Choucador pourpré.

I tend to be willing to agree with them. 30/05/2014: After checking with my new bedside book (Les Oiseaux de l'Ouest Africain, Delachaux & Niestlé), I think I can confidently confirm it's indeed a Purple glossy starling / Lamprotornis purpureus / Merle métallique pourpré.

Birds of a feather...

These cattle companions apparently also enjoy the company of their own...

Oddly enough, there is no cattle around, yet they've been on this meadow for the last 50 minutes or so. Maybe just enjoying a little sun on a Sunday afternoon after the rain...

Tiny (again)

These smell heavenly!

It's always a pleasure to (re)discover nature's wonders with a little one. Like these leaves retracting like shy maiden girls when touched. I think the scientific name is Mimosa pudica.

And the pompom-like flower is beautiful too!

I can't get tired of all this beauty.

After the rain

The pond, this morning around 5.45am.

More (much more) rain today. Hopefully I'll be able to access it tomorrow to check on the water level.

A quite extraordinary visitor

This morning while I was having my breakfast I saw this bird on the grass a few hundred meters from the house. 

I immediately grabbed my camera and went with the little girl to try and get closer. Of course after some time it flew away, probably not liking to see us approaching. A friend kindly told me how it's called: African grey hornbill / Tockus nasutus / Petit calao à bec noir.

The pond

We are gradually getting to know more about this water hole across the road from our house.

It was dug by a group of eight cattle owners as a drinking hole. The land is said to belong to a village about 5km from it. The 'owners' of the pond (those who dug it) exact stiff fines from whoever uses it without their consent, which makes sense since it's 100% rain-filled (there is no stream or river flowing into it) and therefore not an unlimited resource.

My partner met a gentleman who was fishing in the pond. He claims that there is tilapia in it and that at times there is enough for him to sell.

This makes it a valuable resource in more ways than one. Although it's man-made, I believe it's worth protecting and preserving.

Savanna giants

The savanna around my place is quite flat, but a few tall trees lend it some texture, especially on the gorgeous backdrops supplied by the Akwapim hills (west) and the Krobo inselbergs (south, west and east). I'll lay myself open to ridicule here and attempt to name the following few giants.

One of the Borassus genus. Borassus aethiopium would be my (semi-educated) guess.

This I thought was a baobab tree, but on closer inspection, I'm not so sure anymore, since its leaves are quite different from those of other trees I know to be baobabs.

These ones I'm 100% sure are baobabs (Adansonia genus):

This one played a considerable role in my decision to buy land here. It's south of my house, and I have a huge window at the foot of my bed, so that I see it first thing in the morning when I wake up. This view is actually taken standing SW of the tree,

while what I see from my bed is this:

Mostly, the rest is (small but numerous) neem trees. Although these can become quite enormous, I haven't seen any big ones around here. They have running/creeping roots and crop up literally everywhere.