November 12, 2012

 A visitor was waiting when I walked into my office at home this afternoon!
It did not mind posing for a few 'mugshots'

This spider features a marking on its head that resembles a pair of praying hands.
It also has amazingly large Pedipalps that are used to grab and hold prey.

This side view clearly shows the Pedipalps.

I recently downloaded a page from the internet that shows the various eye arrangements of Spiders.

Apparently it is a handy tool for identification purposes, but does not seem to feature these.

Two eyes are situated either side of the 'hands' in the area of the knuckles, 

two large eyes face forward, with four smaller eyes arranged below them on a nose-like bump.

  (two of these eyes could easily be mistaken for nostrils, making it look a bit like a bat)

This is not a common Daddy-long legs, it has thicker legs and 

does not get the shakes when it feels threatened.

It has made its way into the corner of the office where it will probably build a web

that I won't have the heart to remove....   

Strange pets that I keep!

November 11, 2012

 The Lilac Breasted Roller was perched on the very top of this tree that grows behind my house.

It reminded me of a decoration on a Christmas tree!

I had to zoom to the max to get this photo.  See how tall the tree is in the next photo:

In the photo below the bird is perched on my roof - the tree can be seen in the background.

It is obviously feeding its young of the insect it is holding in its beak.

...and here are the mouths that it has to feed!

November 10, 2012

Today I decided to try and tame the lawn that was already knee-high in places!

(Our gardener is standing in as cleaner in the hostel in the place of someone who recently retired.)

There was a visitor in the birdbath! Do snails drink water, I wonder? 

Perhaps the poor guy was trying to wash all the grass cuttings off its shell, or

perhaps it was just admiring the snail in the reflection!