When the sun is setting, between dusk and darkness, there is a moment when the light turns blue. And the world stops for a heartbeat.
Merlin – our pup – has one obsession: chasing birds. Initially it was quite an extreme sport, as he was merely 9 weeks old when he discovered the joy of chasing hadedas (a type of large ibis). As it was, a large hadeda was easily 2-3 x bigger than he was…
As he is now 1-year old (and a few kg heavier), I am no longer worried a hadeda will carry him off somewhere. So I let him chase. It keeps him fit – and it keeps hadedas away from our yard, which is a big benefit in itself
I am back… After few years of total silence, I’ve decided to revive my blog – mainly to have an outlet to post my Project 365 photos. (see short background in the page ‘Project 365’)
So, for Day 1 we went for a hike in the private farm near Pretoria. I have to say I am rusty. Despite a nice scenery, I did not get many good photos from the trip. Luckily there are always ants…
Life is hectic at the moment. For all the wrong reasons. But when you are really busy, there is nothing you need more than a break.
Three hours to Bruges, Belgium. Three nights. Small moments of peace.
If you wonder why I have so many after-the-sunset pictures… There isn’t exactly that many hours of daylight in here at the moment. Very quaint. Very Christmassy.
When I was a child, I found it impossible to stay awake in a car for any prolonged periods of time (anyhting above 1.5 minutes). Thus it is a great surprise for both me and my mother that roadtripping has become a travel of choice for me and Stuart. We’ve done some amazing trips all over the world – and living in the middle of Europe is an opportunity not to be missed. This year, part of our summer holidays was spend driving across Germany to Czech Republic, down cross the Czech and back through Germany.
The biggest joy for us is the freedom of roadtripping – we book no hotels ahead of time, nor do we plan what we want to do. We can check out an interesting looking town market near Karlovy Vary or climb up a hill we stumble across on our way to Kutna Hora. When we feel like not driving for the day, we stop and spend the day reading in the central park of Dresden. Whatever our fancy.
At the end, the holiday ends up being like the pictures below – a random collection of feel-good-moments.
Introduction to Finnish autumn. Lingonberries. Swamp. Horse flies.
All worth it for the colors alone.
The summer is already here (at lest in theory, as I look at the heavy rain outside), but I finally had time to spend few minutes with the pictures from our glorious Easter in Finland. Sun and family.
Skiing in the ice was perfect. Even if more active winter sports were also available.
Dad proved us wrong. You can actually get decently sized fish in winter.
Perfect weekend.
Small country need small festivals. Few are more bizarre than the Duck Race.
Concept is simple: take 10,000 rubber ducks, sell them to people for charity, dump them to the river and see which duck comes to the finishing line first. The lucky owner of that one wins a car.
All ducks are the same. No tuning allowed.
Half of Luxembourg showed up.
Although not everyone showed similar enthusiasm.
Suspence is building up
And here they come. All 10,000 of them
Some of the ducks need some help
At the end, it’s all for charity. No other reason really.
My duck did not win.
Over the years I have taken thousands of pics of African wildlife on different safaris. Here are a few. No doubt I’ll add some later on.
This baby elephant wanted to protect its herd and attacked us with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm died before it reached us. A butterfly.
Penguins are typically happy in groups. However, there is always one lone rider.
Mummy and baby in stripes
There should be limits of how personal one should be in removing flies. Buffalo and Oxpecker.
The classic yawn every wildlife photographer needs to capture.
Twins at high alert – boks in Swaziland
Finding the catch
One needs to keep an eye out while others feed.
Blue Moment 