African Joy and Sorrow

Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - Maree©

"The triumph of life is the joy experienced thereafter."
- Maree

A couple of years ago, one of my guinea fowl sitting on eggs was killed by a dog, leaving 10 eggs, on the point of hatching, without a mother. I gathered all the eggs and put them in a basket with a hot water bottle, trying to keep them warm to see if any of them would hatch. Two days later still nothing, but on the third day I heard a weak peep-peep from one of the eggs. None of the others showed any sign of life, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and open the one that was peeping. I gently peeled away the shell and lifted out a perfectly formed little guinea fowl, and placed him on the warm towel, drying his little body with a soft cloth until he lifted his little head and stared me straight in the eye.

That was the beginning of a beautiful, long relationship with "Guinea", who spent five years following me everywhere and providing us with endless hours of pleasure with his surprising antics. He even lured a wild guinea fowl female from the wild (they used to pass through our property in large flocks, travelling from one field to another) and together they reared 5 clutches of beautiful little guinea fowl, all of whom stayed on our property for many years.

When Guinea's wife disappeared one day, he was inconsolable, standing on the wall and calling for hours in that haunting 'phe-twee, phe-twee, phe-twee' that is so typical of the South African bush. After that, he would often disappear for a day or two until, one day, he didn't come home at all. I hoped and presumed that he had found another family and was happily roaming the fields surrounding our property.



Guinea and one of his babies

“This life as you live it now and have lived it, you will have to live again and again, times without number, and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and all the unspeakably small and great in your life must return to you and everything in the same series and sequence -- and in the same way this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and this same way this moment and I myself. The eternal hour glass of existence will be turned again and again -- and you with it, you dust of dust!”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

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The Starling and the Weaver

Yesterday afternoon, while sitting on the patio with a cup of coffee, I saw a bright glint of blue through some plants. I had my camera with me as I had been taking photographs earlier on. I focused on the flash of blue through the plants and to my delight saw this Glossy Starling (Lamprotornis nitens) and a Masked Weaver (Ploceus velatus) at one of my bird baths. The Starling seemed to be aware of me, but the Weaver was not perturbed by me or the Starling, hopping into the water and splashing water all over the Starling, who looked like he was also going to hop in, but never got around to it.

The Weaver spent a couple of minutes splashing around before taking off into the trees and settling down to preen himself. The Starling took a couple of drinks of water and also disappeared into the trees, sure that I was spying on him!

 

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Struthio camelus

“An ostrich with its head in the sand is just as blind to opportunity as to disaster.”

The Ostrich (struthio camelus) is a member of a group of birds known as ratites, that is they are flightless birds without a keel to their breastbone, and are native to Africa. Of the 8,600 bird species which exist today, the ostrich is the largest. Standing tall on long, bare legs, the Ostrich has a long, curving, predominantly white neck. The humped body of the male is covered in black patches and the wings and tail are tipped with white. The female is brown and white. These huge birds, which sometimes reach a height of 2.6 m and a weight of 135 kg, cannot fly, but are very fast runners.

Here in South Africa, Ostriches were almost wiped out in the 18th century due to hunting for feathers. By the middle of the 19th century, due to the extensive practice of ostrich farming, the ostrich population increased. The movement changed to domesticating and plucking ostriches, instead of hunting. Ostriches have been successfully domesticated and are now farmed throughout the world, particularly in South Africa, for meat, feathers and leather. The leather goes through a tanning process and is then manufactured into fashion accessories such as boots and bags.

I don't have any nice pics of Ostriches myself, so I decided to do this sketch for this post. Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - Maree©