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~ An occasional blog, mainly photos

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Tag Archives: marabou stork

Central London at Jubilee time

30 Monday May 2022

Posted by Musiewild in History, Photography, Tennis

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Admiralty Arch, Bloomsbury Square Gardens, Buckingham Palace, Caffe Concerto, Diana Fountain, Elizabeth Line, Grenadier Guards, King George VI, marabou stork, Oxford Circus, Paddington Station, Piccadilly, platinum jubilee, Queen Ekizabeth the Queen Mother, Queen Mary's Gardens, Regent Street, Regent's Park, Ride London, The Mall, The Ritz, Trooping the Colour

The purpose of my trip to London was to see the Stonehenge Exhibition at the British Museum, but it would have been impossible not to be aware that a rather significant jubilee was about to be celebrated, that marking 70 years of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Just in time for the festivities, (but five years late) the Elizabeth tube (metro/subway) line had been opened just three days before my trip. The driver of the mainline train bringing me up from the West Country had helpfully said that access was to be found to the side of Platform 1 of Paddington main line station. Just as well, since there was no signage until very near to the entrance.

Movement was among airy, cavernous stations throughout, and what felt like natural daylight everywhere.

The trains are light and airy as well, open end to (very long) end. Like certain sections of the Circle Line.

My goodness did the Elizabeth Line make a difference to my own movements around the capital! Just 3.5 minutes from Paddington main line station to Tottenham Court Road underground station, (which will increase marginally when the the line’s Bond Street platform opens in the autumn. Meanwhile its roundels read alternately, as we whizzed through, ‘Station Closed’ and ‘Opening Soon’).

Once I had arrived at Tottenham Court Road, my saving of time all evaporated. Even though I had the assistance of the sun’s shadows to determine points of the compass, I still managed to set off in the wrong direction, and what should have been a 6-minute walk turned into a 20-minute one. Thank goodness for texts/SMSs. Mary was able to go and have a coffee while she waited for me.

Once I’d made it to the museum

we made use of Mary’s membership of it, and had a coffee in the members’ cafe.

I’ll cover the exhibition itself in my next blog post.

Mary knows London bus routes inside out, and after our visit to the excellent exhibition she confidently had us walking past Bloomsbury Square Gardens,

to the stop we needed for the bus to get to her home in Kentish Town,

where I was invited to join in a Zoom call with Mary and her siblings,

before her eldest, Susan, top left, who lives very near, joined us for a meal.

The following morning, Saturday, was Mary’s regular get-together for tennis in Regent’s Park. It was a little chilly to begin with, but this did not detract from enjoying the wonderful display of roses.

Crossing the Inner Circle, which surrounds the rose garden, a.k.a. Queen Mary’s Gardens, was a risk to life and limb as cyclists whizzed round!

I took many photos of them, of which here are a very few.

At the tennis courts.

Zooming in on the far end of the courts, I could make out a tennis lesson for youngsters.

I had seen a photo of a flag-lined Mall, and had a yen to reproduce it myself. After we had had sociable coffee with the other tennis players, Mary’s unerring knowledge of the routes soon got us to a bus which would take us to Trafalgar Square. Oxford Circus was not very busy (she said).

Regent Street more so. The yellow sign warns of road closures for the following day to enable Ride London to take place.

I hoped to take my photo of the Mall through Admiralty Arch, but this was as near as I could get, as a very polite policeman directed me back round the outside of the Arch. (Ride London also was inconvenienced by the Jubilee preparations as it usually finishes in the Mall, but did so this year at Tower Bridge.)

The Arch from the Mall side.

I post this photo only to show another, very cheery, policeman.

More zooming in, and this was the best I could do for my hoped-for photo. Crowds (and clean-up lorries) prevented me from getting dead centre.

We had alighted on the tail end of a rehearsal, for, as we soon learned, Trooping the Colour, part of next weekend’s Jubilee celebrations. Did the crowd know of the rehearsal, or had they, just like us, stumbled on it by chance? There were absolute hordes there, making photographic opportunity very random.

Two young Grenadier Guards were selling programmes for the ceremony. (I have no idea what is in the mind of the fellow to the right.)

Two Grenadier Guards selling programmes for the forthcoming ceremony

Statues of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother that I’d never seen before.

I was hoping to take a photo of the front of Buckingham Palace, but we were diverted by solid barriers before getting there. We skirted round to the right, and at one point I could see the whole of the roof of the building over the barriers. Two men from a private security firm were standing by, and one of them (the other held back all the time) told me “No photos, security.” “Ridiculous’ I thought, and said, ‘this is the UK!’ I was quite riled, especially as it called to my mind an incident that had occurred to me on my first day in Uganda in 2013, when a corrupt young soldier (again with his companion holding right back) tried to get my camera from me because I had taken a photo of an enormous bird (a Marabou stork if I remember correctly) in a tree next to some kind of military establishment. I was quite sure he was only going to let me have it back on payment of a ransom, so I wasn’t going to let it go. I won. Anyway, I was quite sure that this security man, whether misinformed or just plain bossy, had got it wrong. There were no notices of any sort forbidding photography, nor could there be any possible reason to justify what he said.

In due course I gave up, and a few steps further on was able to take his photo, with, though it does not show up, a corner of Buckingham Palace in the background, and no-one objecting.

And just a few yards further on, I got this corner of the Palace.

We crossed Green Park to get to Piccadilly,

The Diana Fountain, 1952.

decided not to have lunch at the Ritz, (!)

and settled on Caffe Concerto over the road,

where Mary notice the interesting functional ceiling, à la Pompidou Centre,

and we had a very nice meal, chosen from a very wide menu.

Emerging on to Piccadilly, we saw that it had flags too, though not at such frequent intervals as we had seen elsewhere.

Regent Street had lots.

Back in Kentish Town, we called into a cake shop, and bought a celebratory ‘Queen’s Jubilee White Chocolate Chip Cookie’ each, which we had with a cup of coffee, or half a cookie each anyway. It was very sweet and very enormous.

A game of ‘Upwords’, at which Mary, as usual, beat me, and it was time for me to leave. Again the Elizabeth Line helped speed me on my way to Paddington, and this time it was quite crowded. Today the news tells us that in its first five days, a million journeys were made on it. Mine contributed two to that total.

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Namibia/Botswana/Zambia 18

16 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by Musiewild in Cats, Countryside views, Photography, Travel, Wildlife

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

bateleur, black-backed jackal, Botswana, buffalo, Chacma baboon, China, Chobe river, coppery-tailed coucal, elephant, hippo, Impala, Kori bustard, Lion, lioness, marabou stork, osprey, red-billed hornbill, Trumpeter hornbill, White-fronted Bee-eater, Zambezi, Zambia, zebra, Zimbabwe

Thursday 7th March, morning. As mentioned already, Neil and Jakes were not licensed to lead game drives in Botswana, but we had the opportunity to go on an optional (= paying) game drive organised by the lodge, leaving at 6.00 a.m. Most of us decided to do so, but in the event found we very much missed the quality of our own guides. We were again in two vehicles, open ones this time, and with a couple of other people staying at the lodge in each as well.

With a start at 6.00 a.m., it was still far from fully light.

The guides were clearly not interested/didn’t see birds at all, and it was the German lady in our jeep who spotted these and asked to stop for photos.

Marabou storks

The tour laid on by the hotel clearly caters for the general public just passing though, not knowledgeable (well, most of them) fanatics like us! But we did nevertheless see some interesting and new things, before we got back for a hasty breakfast at 9.00 a.m., and departure as soon as possible afterwards. For we were to leave Botswana finally for a brief sojourn in Zambia, before setting off on the long journey back to the UK.

It was interesting, for example, to see the Chobe River from a different angle than from the river itself.
Impala
Lots of impala
Chacma baboon
Here was a new one – a coppery-tailed coucal
A string of buffalo
I would have liked a chance to get a better picture of these Kori bustard, but the jeep didn’t stop.

This next was perhaps the most interesting sighting of the game drive. A black-backed jackal came trotting towards us, clearly carrying some very fresh meat. It stopped, dropped the meat, scrabbled a bit, and then moved on – without the meat – and passed behind our jeep. What was going on?

Over there is a hippo, but again the jeep didn’t stop
I think this might be a not-quite-adult female Bateleur, but I’m not sure
White-fronted bee-eaters

Perhaps this was the reason the jeep was rushing. We found ourselves in a bunch of at least a dozen other vehicles, all straining to catch a sight of…

.. a handsome male lion padding across at a great distance.

He was followed by a procession of five or six of his females – I lost count.

But they were a very long way off. On the other hand, had we not had the very good lion sightings earlier on in the trip, we would have been thrilled to see even these.

We turned round, and on the way back for breakfast caught sight of …

Zebra and impala
Buffalo
and Osprey

…………..

Crossing from Botswana into Zambia (the former Northern Rhodesia) was a more complicated affair than nipping between Namibia (the old South West Africa) and Botswana (the old Bechuanaland) had been.

I’m not sure what took the time at the Botswana emigration post, but hanging around gave us the chance to observe this Red-billed hornbill.

Entering Zambia involved crossing the ‘mighty’ Zambezi River. We hadn’t the time to wait for this bridge, being financed by China, to be completed. [Edit, 12th April 2020. I have discovered, quite by chance today, that this bridge, the Kazungula Bridge, is being financed not by China, but by the Japan International Co-operation Agency and the African Development Bank. How easily we accept that China is behind all development in Africa. And indeed China is financing much of the railway which will use this bridge.]

So we were going to cross by this.

Which was actually more fun.
Our vehicles were dwarfed by the HGVs also waiting to cross by ferry.
We were not allowed to stay in the vehicles,
But had to walk on, and stand for the crossing. Which was also more fun.
Looking east, please see Zambia (ex-Northern Rhodesia) to the left and Zimbabwe (ex-Southern Rhodesia) to the right.
And looking west, there are Botswana to your left and Namibia to your right. [Edit 12th April, 2020. No, Botswana and Namibia are left, only Zambia on the right. See map in article here.] Whether you can see them or not. The sun on Neil’s left shoulder appears to be coming from the north. That’s because it is – we’re south of the Equator.

We had been warned that here we would have to wait for anything between one hour and three. (Neil had FOUR sets of taxes to pay at different offices!) In the event it was two hours, in great heat, but at least we were in the roofed vehicles by now. There were some interesting things going on, like women picking up really heavy bundles of foodstuffs from the side of some huge HGVs which the latter had carried across the river in addition to their main freight, then putting them on their heads at walking off. I would love to know the story behind that, and I have no idea why I didn’t take photos. Perhaps because of a general reluctance to intrude on people’s daily lives.

Fortunately it was not too long, once we set off, before we stopped for lunch. Though at one point we all leapt up from table (outdoors of course) to seek out a trumpeting Trumpeter hornbill, of which this was the best photo I could get!

Would you even know it was a bird?!

We heard, and indeed saw, plenty of these – very loud – at our next and final lodge.

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Namibia/Botswana/Zambia 7

27 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, Photography, Travel, Wildlife

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

African white-backed vulture, blacksmith lapwing, Burchell's sandgrouse, Double-banded courser, elephant, giraffe, grey heron, grey-headed gull, Impala, kudu, marabou stork, marsh terrapin, Mokuti lodge, northern black korhaan, Pale chanting goshawk, pied avocet, Tawny eagle, termite mound

As I walked back to my room at Mokuti Lodge for a rest after lunch, I felt uncomfortable, not for the last time, to see lawn-watering going on for the pleasure of tourists, in a country so afflicted by drought.

In due course, we went out for our late afternoon drive.

Blacksmith lapwings, impala, and the only elephant who visited this watering hole while we were there.
… Though more elephants were hanging around at a distance when we arrived, facing in both directions, and took some time to move off. It was as if they couldn’t decide whether to come closer. (I refrain from making current political analogies.)
Marabou stork and White-backed vulture
The vulture (which is tagged) does not seem bothered by the giraffe passing behind it.
A grey heron lords it over the blacksmith lapwings
I don’t think you can have too much of giraffes.
Pied avocets. (It’s not for nothing that in French the avocet is ‘Avocette élégante.)
Grey-headed gulls

We moved on – as I recollect to a sewage works.

The Marsh terrapin hangs his legs out to air the rest of his body, as I see it.

As we drove back to the lodge, I tried to capture some of the termite mounds which were to be seen almost everywhere.

Kudu
These korhaans started a lekking display but moved off into the privacy (?) of the bushes so we were unable to observe it. Pity!
A kudu in our way
Burchell’s sandgrouse
Double-banded courser
The weather threatened…
… and came to nothing. Tawny eagle.
But still kept threatening. Pale chanting goshawk.

We spent our second night at Mokuti Lodge, to move on the next day.

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Namibia/Botswana/Zambia 3

19 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by Musiewild in Cats, Countryside views, Photography, Travel, Wildlife

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

black rhino, black-backed jackal, blacksmith lapwing, elephant, Etosha National Park, Etosha Pan, glossy starling, Halali camp, Hyena, Impala, kudu, laughing dove, Lion, marabou stork, Namibia, red hartebeest, rhino, Rock kestrel, Scops owl, secretary bird, Spotted hyena, Springbok, Striped mongoose, whydah, zebra

Monday, morning, 25th February. Here is a map of Etosha National Park. ”Etosha“>http://a href=”https://www.etoshanationalpark.org”><img src=”https://www.etoshanationalpark.org/media/Etosha-Map2.jpg” alt=”Etosha National Park Map” title=”Etosha National Park Map”/></a>

It’s huge. Etosha Pan itself is 75 miles/120 kilometres long. This is a dried up lake, the salt from which affects the land to its south. We had entered the NP by Anderson Gate, in the middle of the Park, and Halali Camp is a little over a third of the way along the Pan to the northwest of the Gate. The map shows the many waterholes.

After a very early breakfast, we went out for a ‘game’ drive. It was not quite as light as my camera made out to begin with.

Black-backed jackal
Our first lion, a female with a nasty but healing wound. She seems to have the remains of a kill.
Springbok and Striped Mongooses
Secretary bird, the last we were to see
Our first elephant, much further off than it appears from this maximum zoom photo
The Pan in the middle ground
Rock kestrel?. No, a lesser kestrel according to BL.
And then we heard a lion was on its way. Our leaders positioned the vehicles near the pool it was thought to be heading for.
What a handsome beast!
He roared for his females. It was loud! Nothing like the gentle huffing in the following video taken from a new spot we had moved to
He stopped, examined us …
… and then moved off. We did not see his females.
We continued on our way, and I’m starting to recognise a blacksmith lapwing.
What’s that venturing its head out of a (dried up of course) culvert?…
… A spotted hyena
Another black rhino – or rather two!

When we got back to Halali Camp, it was still relatively early, and we had a couple of hours off. The Camp had no free wifi, but our vehicles did, and I spent some time in one of them (as it was being driven to get fuel and then parked somewhere in the camp) catching up with vital home political news. (For those interested in such things, I learned that THAT vote, due already for the nth time on 27th February, was being put off again for two weeks.)

Before lunch, the group walked five minutes to the waterhole a few had visited the previous evening. En route we saw in the camp grounds, among other things, …

a Cape glossy starling (we were to see many varieties of beautiful starling in the two weeks),
and an African Scops owl, trying to sleep, a bit fed up with the attention. To quote from my bird book, ‘ … its cryptic colouring makes detection difficult. This camouflage is further enhanced by its habit of depressing its fathers to appear long and thin, raising its ear tufts and half-closing its eyes, creating the illusion of a tree stump.’

Once at the waterhole, where we were comfortably seated, we saw plenty of life.

Kudu and Marabou stork
Red-billed teal
Kudu
Laughing dove and Long-tailed paradise whydahs (?)
I think this is the male of a species of Paradise whydah in transition to breeding plumage, but I’m not sure
Impalas practising. Elephant dung gets everywhere.
Marabou stork
Long-tailed Paradise-Whydahs, male and female
The pool was not empty for long
Red hartebeest
And this I how the pool was when we left for our lunch.

It had been quite a morning!

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Tanzania 4

02 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by Musiewild in Cats, Geology, Photography, Travel, Wildlife

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Cokes hartebeest, giraffe, Grantj's gazelle, hornbill, Hyena, Impala, lion cub, marabou stork, Ndutu, Shifting Sands, Tanzania, Thomson's gazelle, Von der Decken's hornbill, White stork, Wildebeest, zebra

The afternoon’s safari

P1190813

Marabou storks

P1190826

P1190840

Thomson’s gazelle (with horizontal black stripe), Grant’s gazelle (without) and Impala (Tawny colour)

included observing how difficult it is for giraffes to drink,

P1190870

How do giraffes drink? Inelegantly

P1190906

P1190952

Von der Decken’s hornbill

a herd of wildebeest and zebras migrating firstly alongside us and then crossing our path, many of the zebras stopping to drink, though not the wildebeest,

P1190972P1190985P1190998P1200018

P1200063

Cokes hartebeest

and an enchanting time again, as night fell, with some lions.  It took some while for us to realise just how many there were in the heap and in the bushes, but in the end we counted seven cubs and three lionesses.  A delightful moment was when one of the latter just went and lay down on top of the heap of cubs.

P1200074P1200085P1200099P1200104

The next day, Monday 15th February, meant it was time to leave Ndutu and move on, or rather to retrace our path.  This involved a much sunnier drive across the plain than when we arrived, and some great wildlife moments: a spotted hyena washing its meat, dozens of white storks at a watering hole and wheeling in the sky (sorry, no decent picture of that), and baby Thomson’s gazelle and wildebeest.

P1200132P1200149P1200160P1200166P1200190

P1200208

White storks coming in to land

P1200219P1200244P1200260P1200263P1200273

We also stopped at ‘Shifting Sands’, an isolated sand dune that moves under the effect of the wind, a most curious phenomenon.  Shortly afterwards we were out of the Park.

P1200277P1200281P1200283P1200294

(Soon: Ngorogoro Crater)

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Tanzania 3

01 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by Musiewild in Cats, Photography, Travel, Wildlife

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

African white-backed vulture, Dik dik, Lion, lion cub, lioness, marabou stork, Ndutu, Tanzania, terrapin

A shorter post today, but with our best lion experience yet.

Once again, on Sunday, 14th February, we set off in the very early morning.  We soon came across a mother with older cubs, much more playful than previously, and, with no other jeeps around hooray, we just enjoyed their company as they – some of them anyway, others, of what seemed to be four cubs in the greenery, just couldn’t find the courage – went up and down a tree just metres away from us, honing their climbing skills. All seemed happy to wander round and round our two jeeps, to our delight.

P1190311P1190283P1190317P1190333P1190390P1190398P1190413P1190424P1190435P1190438P1190502

After 90 minutes or so we moved off to a dead tree we could see in the distance, where an older lioness obliging posed for us.

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We took breakfast by the side of a nearby lake.

P1190641

Too small to identify?

P1190645

Marabou storks and African white-backed vultures

P1190653P1190685

P1190716

Squabbling over prey

Late morning went back to see what ‘our’ lions were doing.  No surprise there, especially given the heat of midday.

P1190719

P1190725

Dik dik

P1190761

(Awaiting identification)

P1190750

Back to the lodge for lunch in the dining room, which typically had no windows, followed by a siesta for some in the comfortable bedrooms.

P1190791

Dining room

P1190808

Bedroom

(To be continued)

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