29th November 2007

We had a massive rain storm this evening, preceded by winds like I’ve never seen (which is quite something, for Kulafumbi can be a very windy place, especially when the wind gallops ahead of a rain storm.) Just before the rain hit, the sky was lit up by huge rainbow arcs, which looked so spectacular above the gold-drenched river.

We had a Red Spitting Cobra in our bathroom this evening – my guess it had been hunting swifts or bats in the palm-thatch “eye-brows” above our bedroom, and was washed out by the torrential rain and wind. The snakes, like the bugs, are something you just have to deal with in the rainy season. It’s only for a few short days each year, so it’s really not as bad as you might imagine.

More and more flowers are blossoming, and this evening we had yet another sensational display of moths – winged flowers of the night.

Barleria acanthoides
Beautiful Bug
Delicacy epitomized...

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View more Kulafumbi indigenous plant & flower photos...
More dramatic cloud and rainbow images...
More incredible-looking insects...

Update on Saturday, December 1, 2007 at 11:46PM by Tanya

I forgot to tell you my spider story: It is almost impossible to make out what is going on in this photo (click on the thumbnail for a larger view), for the spider in the picture is so well camouflaged you can hardly see him. This is an image from a gory drama that was being played out behind my bathroom taps this morning, just as I was brushing my teeth. I noticed this tiny spider, only a couple of millimetres long, rushing around and around the diminutive beetle (itself only 5mm or so long), and slowly but surely incapacitating it in its web. I rested my lens on the basin taps and flicked it to the Macro setting to try to get a picture...see if you can make it out...