Schalow's Turaco - Tauraco schalowi

I have been determined to photograph these birds ever since I first saw them a few years ago. They have been insanely elusive for me until recently. At least 4 of them have begun to get quite comfortable in my yard most mornings & evenings to the point that I managed to get 2 decently close photographs of them.

I am so hopeful that this could lead to me actually taking beautiful & aesthetically pleasing photographs of them. Keeping all my fingers & toes crossed !


Schalow's Turaco 1
Schalow's Turaco 2



Interesting facts from Africa Geographic

Turacos make up the bird family Musophagidae (literally ‘banana-eaters’), which includes plantain-eaters and go-away-birds. There are 23 species of turacos which vary in appearance quite dramatically.

The Schalow’s turaco Tauraco schalowi) is a frugivore – their preferred diet consists of fruits – and is named after the German banker and amateur ornithologist, Hermann Schalow.

This turaco can be easily identified by its colours and markings: their body is a coppery-jade green that fades to a dark iridescent blue the closer you get towards the tail. They have long white-tripped crests with small red beaks and red skin around their dark eyes lined with white feathers.


DJI Ronin-S

For my birthday last month, my husband was super sweet and surprised me with a new DJI Ronin-S gimbal. It arrived last night so all the test videos are beginning today! To say I am excited is an understatement.

I’ve spent this morning trying to get it as balanced as possible, and so far it’s not too shabby. It still drifts a little bit so I need to fine tune it, but it is already an amazing improvement upon my usual shaky handheld clips. I may or may not currently have a stress headache from it, but that is also because I can be a bit of a perfectionist ;D

I need to see if I can invert the tilt controls as gaming has set me up for failure, yes I am one of those that needs inverted controls, and thus I keep trying to use it the same way I play games.

Anyway, this blog post is just really to show one of my first little test clips. It’s honestly nothing exciting unless you love my dopey dogs as much as I do.

WARNING - Dog balls are in full display at the end of the clip…

What's happening?

It has been a busy few months with moving and flying back and forth between Northern Ireland and Zambia to ship my stuff, so I haven't had as much time to update this as I had planned.

Doesn't help that we got two new puppies as well. Talk about a lot of work (but super fun). There is always time to photograph puppies though, amirite!? I would like to introduce you to the cuties that are Mowgli and Baloo. Mowgli is a German Shepherd x Lab and Baloo is a Boerboel aka South African Mastiff. 

The rainy season has begun and with it I am seeing a lot more species of birds in my yard. Setting myself a task of photographing and identifying as many as possible, so keep a look out for that !

 

With a change of location comes a change of website

I have recently relocated to Solwezi, Zambia. You can look forward to some more Zambia related posts on this site as well as anywhere I happen to travel.

I'm going to spend the next week or so editing and updating this site, so sit back, relax and see what happens !

The first few days I have already spotted a few cool critters in my front and backyards. Hopefully, I can gather some cool images to share here.

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Groovy Little Lizard

It seems to enjoy sunning itself in my front yard. This photo was just a quick snap with my phone's camera.

 

 I think I spotted a collared sunbird (Hedydipna collaris) yesterday, but by the time I got back to the area with my camera it was gone. Here's hoping it shows up again, because it was beautiful.