Category: Nature

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Tuesday/ Robberg Beach 🌞

My friends and I went for a walk on Robberg beach this morning, and for a very pleasant swim in the Indian Ocean.

The peninsula called Robberg is 8 km (5 miles) south of Plettenberg Bay on the Garden Route. It is a nature reserve, and also a World Heritage Site.
This is Robberg Beach No 5 (one of several beaches with lifeguards between the Beacon Island Hotel and Robberg).
The water temperature was very pleasant, all due to the warm Agulhas sea current coming down the coast from further up north.
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Monday/ Central Beach 🏖️

There was no rain today here in Plettenberg Bay, but it was still cloudy and mild, with a high of only 23 °C (74 °F).
I went for a walk on Central Beach late this afternoon.

This picture is from early Sunday evening, of the iconic Beacon Isle hotel, with Central Beach in the foreground.
The site of the hotel has a distinctive history: it was a whaling station at the turn of the twentieth century, and became the location of a small hotel in 1940.
In 1972, this hotel was demolished and replaced with the six-story Beacon Isle Hotel.
Watch out for great white sharks! 🦈
Looking at that bar chart below the shark’s tail fin, it appears that it is less likely in January for sharks to appear in these waters.
Plettenberg Bay has experienced increased white shark activity in recent years and tragically suffered two fatal shark bite incidents in 2022, within three months of each other.
Little egrets (Egretta garzetta) roosting in a tree in the parking lot across from the Beacon Island hotel. They are herons, belonging to the family Ardeidae.
Here comes a fishing safari boat, hot and heavy, so that it can beach and then be winched further up onto the sand.
There is a rocky outcrop on the far end of Central Beach (away from the Beacon Isle Hotel).
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Sunday/ to Plettenberg Bay 🐚

It’s a 6-hour drive to Plettenberg Bay. We opted for the N1 national route through the Huguenot Tunnel to Swellendam, from where we took the N2 to Plettenberg Bay.

I could only take pictures of the first half of the drive, while I was the  passenger and not the driver.  🤗

It’s a 6 hour drive from Cape Town to Plettenberg Bay.
Here is the entrance to the Huguenot Tunnel.
It is a toll road tunnel that runs through the Du Toitskloof Mountains, connecting Cape Town to the northern regions of the country.
The tunnel is 3.9 km (2.4 mi) long and it opened in March 1988.
The tunnel offers a route that is safer, faster (between 15 and 26 mins) and shorter (by 11 km/ 6.8 mi) than the old Du Toitskloof Pass over the mountain.
At the other side of the tunnel, there are beautiful scenes of the Du Toitskloof Mountains.
Soft cloud puffs and the jagged outcrops of the Du Toitskloof Mountains.
This is a railway station building in the town of Robertson.
The town of Ashton lies at the foot of the Langeberg mountain range.
This arch bridge is new (it opened in August 2021) and lies over the Cogmans Gorge River (Afr. Kogmanskloofrivier) in Ashton.
Here is Swellendam, the third oldest town in South Africa after Cape Town and Stellenbosch.
I found this hibiscus flower in Riversdale, as we made a stop to have some lunch.
This is the N2 national highway in the Riversdale area— even though it offers only one lane in each direction here.
We did not run into too much traffic going east, but we ran into lines of cars going in the opposite direction, heading back to Cape Town. The kids in school still have a week or two of summer recess, but maybe mom or dad will have to go back to work on Monday.
Lots of rolling hills and farmland in the Riversdale area.
We made it! We lost the blue skies and the sun along the way, but that’s OK. It’s just a rainy day in Plettenberg Bay and we will soon have the sun back.
This is the view from our Airbnb, of the Keurbooms Estuary and the beaches around Plettenberg Bay.
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Saturday/ checking out 🏨

It’s time to leave the Cape Town area, and the Airbnb that I have been staying in. My friend and I are driving up the coast to Plettenberg Bay in the morning.

I have been staying in an apartment in one of these buildings by the Tyger Waterfront in Bellville. The complex is built around an old quarry that has been transformed into a 4-hectare man-made lake with a promenade around it.
A Cape wagtail (Afr. Kaapse kwikstertjie, Motacilla capensis) sits on a handrail.
And this fella is a rock hyrax (Afr. Kaapse dassie, Procavia capensis). They are small, plump and tail-less guinea-pig-like animals, about as large as a big rabbit.
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Thursday/ fishes from Mozambique 🐠

I am buying stamps from South Africa and southern Africa now that I am here, and saving a little money in the process. (Stamps from this part of the world are sent to the USA by express airmail or by international courier— which can be $40 or more for one shipment. Surface mail takes several months).

I love this 1951 definitive issue from Mozambique, part of a set of 24 stamps.
At the time, Mozambique was still a Portuguese colony, and the currency was the escudo.

The fishies are going to swim in freshwater when I get them home, so that I can separate them from the paper that they are pasted on.

 

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Friday/ Pringle Bay beach 🏖️

Happy Friday, the last one for 2024!

These photos are from yesterday, from a little trip I made with my family to Pringle Bay.
Pringle Bay is a small, coastal village in the Overberg region of the Western Cape, in South Africa. It is situated at the foot of Hangklip, on the opposite side of False Bay from Cape Point. The town and surrounds are part of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO Heritage Site. [Wikipedia]

The main beach at Pringle Bay has rocks and tide pools, and then a sandy stretch for heliophiles and bathers. The rocky outcrop in the distance on the left is Hangklip (Afr. “hanging rock”), 420 m tall (1,377 ft), marking the entrace to False Bay as one approaches Cape Town along the coast from the east.
Here is the main beach at Pringle Bay. We’re on the Indian Ocean side of Cape Town (only just), and here the beaches have warmer waters than on the Atlantic side: the effects of the warm Agulhas Current that comes down along Mozambique from Africa’s eastern coast.
Time for my nephew to deploy his drone (I don’t know the model name, but it’s a technological marvel; cost: about $800). It has very sophisticated navigation abilities and a super-high resolution 360° swiveling camera.
Off it goes, up, up to 1,000 m (3,280 ft)— at which point it is invisible to the naked eye.
We only saw something black with fins, maybe, from the beach out in the distance. The drone footage shows that the fins belong to the sea lions.
(Seals or sea lions? These are sea lions:  brown, bark loudly, “walk” on land using their large flippers and have visible ear flaps. Seals have small flippers, wriggle on their bellies on land, and lack visible ear flaps. – Source: noaa.gov).
The drone’s camera has a very high resolution and superzoom capabilities.
A viewpoint on the way back to Cape Town, showing the coastline and the fynbos* of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve.
*Fynbos: fine-leaved shrubland or heathland vegetation found in the Western and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa.
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Thursday/ Oh Canada 🍁

These stamps from Canada were on an envelope that had arrived from an Ebay seller.

Provincial Emblems
Issued Apr. 28, 1965
Perf. 12 | Recess printing | No watermark
981 441 5c Red-brown, deep bluish-green and mauve | Prairie Crocus and Arms of Manitoba
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, stampworld.com]
Rehabilitation
Issued May 29, 1980
Perf. 12½ | Litho printing by Ashton Potter | No watermark
979 440 17c Gold and ultramarine | “Helping hand”
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, stampworld.com]
Centenary of “Oh Canada” (national song)
Issued Jun. 6, 1980
Perf. 12½ | Litho printing by Ashton Potter | No watermark
981 441 17c Multicolored | Calixa Lavallee (Composer), Adolphe-Basile Routhier (Original Writer) and Robert Stanley Weir (writer of English Version)
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, stampworld.com]
Canada Day (Maps showing Evolution of Canada from Confederation to Present Day) Issued Jun. 30, 1981
Perf. 13×12½ | Se-tenant pair, part of a strip of four | Raymond Bellemare Engraving: British American Bank Note Company, Ottawa | No watermark
1015 454 17c Multicolored | Canada in 1905
1015 454 17c Multicolored | Canada since 1949
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue, Part 1 British Commonwealth, stampworld.com]
Beneficial Insects
Issued Oct. 19, 2010
Perf. 13×13¼ | Issued in souvenir sheet of 5 |Keith Martin Engraving: Cie canadienne des billets de banque | No watermark
2623 7c Multicolored | Large Milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus)
2625 9c Multicolored | Dogbane Beetle (Chrysocus auratus)
[Source: stampworld.com]

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Wednesday/ mushrooms 🍄

Herewith the 2024 fall edition of the mushrooms in my yard.

These are in the grass in the front yard: the Scotch bonnet (Marasmius oreades), also known as the fairy ring mushroom or fairy ring champignon.
The bright red fly agarics (Amanita muscaria) are not so plentiful this year. About six inches across, this one.
The squirrels like to nibble on the cap, but not much more than that.
I believe these are brown fly agarics (Amanita regalis).

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Thursday/ colder ❄

The amigos played pickleball inside at the Sandman’s Courts in Columbia City today.
There was sun outside, but the high was only 55°F (13°C).

Mr Woodpecker (a Northern flicker, Colaptes auratus) looking for ants in the cracks of the sidewalk in front of my house. I wonder if it decided to stay put for winter, or if it will soon fly somewhere south where it will be warmer.
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Wednesday/ yellow jacket 🐝

I’m still learning to use my phone’s ultrawide lens for macro photos.
The depth of field is shallow (the space in which everything will be in focus), and I had to hold the phone so close to my object* that I worried getting stung by it. 😱

*Yellowjacket or yellow jacket is the common name in North America for predatory social wasps of the genera Vespula and Dolichovespula.

Original picture taken with Ultra Wide lens on iPhone 16 Pro, 13 mm f2.2 equivalent, 3024×4032 pixels (12 MP), cropped to 1744×2325 pixels.
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Thursday/ a little rain ☔

There was a little rain today, and it definitely felt like fall, with a high of only 56°F (13°C).

Raindrops and a blob are sticking to the milkweed (Euphorbia) at the back of my house.
[Original image shot with iPhone 16 Pro’s Ultra Wide Lens, 13 mm f2.2 equivalent at  3024×4032 pixels (12 MP) which was resized to 1125×2000 for this post]
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Tuesday/ mail from Down Under 🇦🇺

There was mail from an Ebay seller in Tasmania, Australia, in my mailbox today— with a single pair of South African stamps inside.

2023 Australia’s Native Animals – International Stamps
Issued Jun. 26, 2023
Perf. 13¾ x 14½ |Design: Jason Watts Engraving/RA Printing | No watermark
No. 4205 AUS$ 3.90 |Multi-colored |Bilby (Macrotis lagotis)
Notes:
The bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is a desert-dwelling marsupial about the size of a rabbit. It was once widely distributed through arid and semi-arid Australia, but wild populations are now restricted to spinifex grassland in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and to a small region of southwestern Queensland.
[Sources:stampworld.com, Australia Post Stamp Bulletin No 384]
1930-1945 South Africa Definitive Issue (designs redrawn)
Issued Sep. 1, 1938
Perf. 15×14 |Photogravure |Wmk. Multiple Springbok heads
Se-tenant pair of Afrikaans & English inscribed stamps
SACC 43c 2d |Blue and violet |Union Buildings, Pretoria
[Source: The South Africa Stamp Colour Catalogue, 1988]

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Saturday/ a new waterfront park 🏙️

The new elevated Waterfront Park here in the city opened yesterday.
The park is on the central waterfront by downtown Seattle and connects Pike Place Market and  downtown neighborhoods with the waterfront.
A few public art installations and a concessions area are still to be added, by early 2025.

This picture is from Friday, and from the Seattle Times. People wait to take to the Overlook Walk before the grand opening on the Seattle waterfront.
[Photograph by Kevin Clark / The Seattle Times]
The view from the uppermost deck across from Pike Place Market today, and I am looking more or less south to the Seattle Ferry Terminal in the distance, on the left and behind the Ferris wheel.
There are several winding staircases down to the lowest level where the piers are. The blue building is the old part of the Seattle Aquarium, and the structure clad with the wooden slats outside is the new extension of the Aquarium.
Looking up from one the decks halfway down. The newly routed Alaskan Way and Elliot Way meet here. The elevated Alaskan Way viaduct that used to run along here is now long gone (demolished in 2019).
Looking north towards the Port of Seattle Cruise Terminal (Pier 66). The Norwegian Bliss is about to depart for Alaska.
In the foreground Palestinian flags are being waved by anti-war protesters. Some signs read ‘No War in Iran’, as well.
This structure houses the new pavilion of the Seattle Aquarium. The wood-clad outside is meant to weather to a gray color, I believe.
At the entrance to the aquarium, prospective visitors get a glimpse into one of the large tanks.
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Saturday/ a spectacular night sky 🔭

Summer is officially over.
The fall equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere is at Sun, Sep 22, 2024, 5:43 AM Pacific Time.

Here’s a gorgeous aurora borealis picture taken near Near Magnuson Park, Seattle around midnight or in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
[Posted by NWS Seattle @NWSSeattle at 1.35 am on Tuesday. I reduced the pixel size of the original picture]
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Tuesday/ urban raptor 🪶

I spotted this peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) today, in an open lot near Broadway & Republican Street here on Capitol Hill.
I think this one is a juvenile bird— it still had some downy feathers on its breast and underbelly.

Falcons have extraordinary speed and maneuverability, and hunt birds on the wing. Their prey also include bats, voles, lemmings, squirrels, rats and lizards.

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Friday/ watch out! 😲

Happy Friday The Thirteenth.
Below is a story of a harbor seal that was in the wrong place at the wrong time (but ended up being OK).

Photo by Brooke Casanova, Blue Kingdom Whale & Wildlife Tours (Pacific Whale Watch Association).

STRAIGHT OF JUAN DE FUCA, Wash. — An incredibly rare event was caught on camera Thursday in the Strait of Juan de Fuca: a humpback whale accidentally scooped up a seal while trying to snack on some fish.

Not to worry, though. The seal is unharmed.
According to the Pacific Whale Watch Association (PWWA), humpback whales eat small fish and krill, not seals.
While they have very large mouths, their throats are roughly the size of a grapefruit, so PWWA says they can’t swallow something as large as a seal.

A PWWA member company, Blue Kingdom Whale & Wildlife Tours from Anacortes snapped a photo of the very surprised seal in its jaws and shared it with KIRO 7.
The tour was watching humpback whale BCX1876 “Zillion” feed on a school of small bait fish at the time.
“The harbor seal was likely feeding on the same small fish and found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time,” PWWA said.
Zillion opened her jaw and lowered her head into the water so the seal could swim away.
“We occasionally see humpback whales get small birds stuck in their mouths while feeding, but a seal was a huge surprise,” PWWA said.
– Reported by By Lexi Herda, for KIRO 7 News in Seattle (here’s the link)