Almost more birds than leaves!

This afternoon I came home to see this neem tree (just opposite our door) full of big black birds I had never seen before:

My partner told me they had come with a herd of cattle and, indeed, some of the cows were still on our land when I drove in. What was surprising is that 1. we had never seen this bird before; and 2. we usually see the white cattle egrets with the herds.

Thanks to my very knowledgeable almost neighbour (don't be too litteral at that: he lives about 30km from here), I was able to put a name on this bird: it's a Piapiac / Ptilostomus afer / Piapiac africain.

Passion flower

There is a tangle of vegetation in one corner of our plot we haven't sorted out (well, there are several, in fact, but this one seems so far the most interesting), where I've discovered this:

which, just in case you didn't immediately identify it, will develop into this:

and, eventually this:

Yes! a whole, beautiful, spontaneously occurring passion flower! and there are a bunch in my garden. Am I lucky or what?

Red alert (again!)

Red does indeed occur quite a lot naturally in our environment. Here is a bird which is relatively common in the region, but very difficult to photograph.

Sorry for the somewhat blurred image. I was much farther from the elusive bird than my camera is comfortable with. My connection is not good enough to look it up, so I don't have a name yet, but I hope to be able to come back with it soon.

My connection gave me a little respite and I was able to come up with a possible-to-likely candidate (disproved by a learned neighbour -- but I was close! same family, wrong region). The probably final identification is: Northern Red Bishop / Euplectes franciscanus / Euplecte franciscain. As of 29/05/2014 and armed with a book on West African birds, I'm now quite confident it is a Red Bishop / Euplectes orix /Ignicolore.

Mimicry

Recently I posted about a very elegant bird I discovered in my surroundings. Today, I realised why I had never seen it before. Its colourings are so close to those of the grass; leaves; and branches, that unless you see it landing, you'll never notice it.

This  White-throated Bee-eater / Merops albicollis / Guêpier à gorge blanche is indeed another wonder for my already substantial collection.

Red!

If you'd asked me, I'd have said there is not much red flora or fauna occurring naturally. Well, I'm delighted to acknowledge I'd have been wrong.

This morning the little miss showed me this dragonfly which, after the Shar Pei insect and the baobab fruit bug, is yet another vibrantly red insect in our environment. Wonders...

What are these trees?

Baobabs, not baobabs? I just cant' seem to make up my mind about it.

One such trees was uprooted by so-called developers not far from here, and once fallen (and rid of these parasitic plants that all but cover this one), it certainly looks like a baobab tree.

Whatever they are, I like these upturned whitish branches.

Baobab flowers and fruits

This morning I went on a baobab identification mission with my little 3-year old helper (she is very observant and has a better eyesight than I do, which offsets her tendancy to chatter continuously and to point her finger at the most incongruous --or unremarkable-- things with an excitedness that tends to be infectious. That is, until you realise that, in fact, she was showing you the umpteenth sparrow that morning, or anything as pedestrian as that.)

I was a bit disappointed to see that the flowering stage is all but over already,

But I was able to "catch" a late flower

And to witness a whole lot of promises from mother Nature

Beautiful

Just a couple of pictures of butterflies I was fortunate enough to be able to get close enough to this morning.

Because you _always_ need beauty, and the more unexpected, the better.

The Shar Pei of insects

My very observant little girl attracted my attention to this insect this morning, during our dawn walk to take comparative pictures of baobab trees for friends in Senegal and in Cambodia.

Don't you think it's as deliciously ugly as a Shar Pei?

Nature baffles me, most of the time. It does more and better than mankind, every time. (The insect is most likely not genetically engineered, and it's red. Two plusses this modern man-selected (man-made) dog "breed" can't claim.)