Olive

Seen once before here but still a pretty elusive visitor to the back garden: an Olive Woodpecker (Dendropicos griseocephalus).

Never easy to shoot (just look at that post I linked to above), because they are so agile and so ready to slip around a tree trunk or branch just as you are getting them into focus.
Not to mention the leafy suburban garden getting between the lens and it.

But he soon got into the mood and even gave me a very brief smile before we headed our separate ways.

One of my jobs for this holiday is to compile a list of birds I have seen in – and birds I have seen from – our garden. There will be a couple of surprising* entries in the latter (African Fish Eagle, Great White Pelican) as well as the usual Cape Town run-of-the-mill feathery stuff.

* OK, less surprising now, I guess.

Terrifying dinosaur

On our patio, nogal.

OK. Not so terrifying.

He’s a Cape Skink (Trachylepis capensis) and he’s completely harmless.

Not uncommon around here either. You may remember them from previous posts on 6000 miles…

We have a family of them living in the back garden, and with the warmer weather now with us, it’s nice to see them out and about, legging it between the woodpile under the braai and the bushes on the far side of the patio.

Always with a slightly knowing smile on their little faces.

He’s getting big

Careful now…

Who? Who’s getting big?

Our resident Cape Skink (Trachylepis capensis), unbelievelably named “Mr Skinky Skink” by someone that really should know better, is getting big. That’s who.

Resident in the braai wood pile under the braai, he’s literally like a wild pet. And we’ll never use all the braai wood in the braai wood pile, because that would mean that he didn’t have a home.

We’re hoping that if he keeps growing at the current rate, that one day he’ll be a fire-breathing dragon, which would not only be entertaining, but would also save a fortune in matches for winter fires and summer braais.