Tree frog

I came home late and in the pitch dark heard a noise on the stairs. What a fright!! I dashed inside to get my camera and a light and saw this cute tree frog there. He probably got a bigger fright than I did. LOL!!

Common Rose Aphid

Rose Aphids (macrosiphon rosae) can be found on the roses in early spring but a spray of soapy liquid will control them instead of pesticides.
Their natural enemies are ladybirds, hoverflies and some small birds.

They are easily identified by their knees, antennae and very long horns on abdomen being black. In this photograph you can see ladybird larva too.

They range from pale pink to reddish brown in color and are found in winged form.

Orchids 2

In South Africa, we do not have snow, mistletoe or any of the traditional things associated with Christmas, so I decided to post some of my favorite flowers to share with everyone

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY

May the day be filled with love, sharing and wonderful things.

Thank you for all your friendliness and support since I started blogging. It is greatly appreciated.

Even weeds can be beautiful - Part 1

Weeds, in various stages of their cycle, can be beautiful too if only we took the time to notice.

Kori Bustard

Today I going to surprise everyone by posting a bird!! LOL!!

This is a Kori Bustard and is slightly bigger than a turkey. It eats a wide variety of animals and plant products, often eating hard materials, such as stones, pieces of bones and even bullet shells and broken glass! The male does a courtship display to multiple females, after which it mates with some of them.
The 1-2 chicks are able to fly when they are 3-4 months old, but they remain dependent on their mother until the following breeding season, when they are 12-18 months old.

Egg-laying season is from July-April, peaking from October-February. The eggs, which are incubated by the female only for 23-25 days, is defended from any lurking predators by chasing them with its head pointing downward.

Lions - Part 2

I have given a lot of interesting facts about lions before so I am not going to include them here. If you are interested and missed it you can go to this blog:

http://saphotographs.blogspot.com/2010/01/lions.html

There are more if you do a search on "lions".

Kangaroo Paw

A few months ago someone in Australia was telling me about this interesting looking plant which I had never seen before. She posted some pictures so I could see what they looked like. Then a few weeks ago, I walked into a local nursery, and there they were selling these plants. Imagine her surprise when I posted the pictures for her. She tells me that some of these colors she has never seen, so I am not sure where our nursery got them from. The flowers are quite small, about 1 to 1 1/2 inches in length.