Some flyers at our lake.

We now have all of the early signs that winter will be upon us soon.

Just a special bird to start off with, with two shots. It is called a Black-winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus).

I haven't gotten a Stilt before on camera, and this one was a real find for me.

The black-winged stilt (Himantopus himantopus) is a widely distributed, very long-legged wader in the avocet and stilt family Recurvirostridae. Its scientific name, Himantopus himantopus, is sometimes used to generalize a single, almost cosmopolitan species. Alternatively, it is restricted to the form that is widespread in Europe, Asia and Africa, which equals the nominate group of H. himantopus sensu lato. Meanwhile, the black-necked (H. mexicanus) and white-backed stilts (H. melanurus) both inhabit the Americas; the pied stilt (H. leucocephalus) ranges from Australia and New Zealand. Today, most sources accept between one and four actual species.

Source

A flock of ducks took off to go someplace. See the white stilt at the left of the picture, and also some yellow billed ducks.

Even a flamingo at the bottom of the picture.

Now just look at that. Imagine having to zoom each of these birds and to name their species.

A distant look and you can see how dry the lake has become, as it is waiting for the winter rains to fill it up again.

And the birds just kept on coming along. I think there had to be more than a thousand.

All of the mud at the front right up to the water is normally in spring season filled up with water.

Then I have two boards to show you below that name the species that one can find at this lake and its surrounds.

These are just some of the species, as there are also many other birds that come to this lake.

It is going to take me a long time to get all of the species on camera, but I like challenges and we shall see what we will see how I get along. In the area is also a famous cheetah rehabilitation center and we popped in there a long time ago, that I posted some years ago. We get nervous when we see animals in cages, as we prefer the ones in the wild. However, the cheetahs are not kept in small cages as they have large patches of land to run around in while they recover.

We are always on the side of activists who fight for the rights of animals and the environment, as these creatures cannot fight for themselves. I think that if animals could speak, they will tell us that we are also strange animals that always try to kill most of them. Leave us alone, they would say and carry on with your own lives. But sadly, that is not to be.
Instead, the extinction of many species continues, due mainly to loss of their habitats.
Such is life.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.

Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.

Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.

Until next time, cheers!