The World Through Our Lens
After a stretch of very hot weather, Bob and I were desperate to get out for a hike. The Beare Hill Wetlands in Rouge National Urban Park, in northeast Toronto, Ontario, seemed a logical place to explore. Among the various butterflies and insects sighted that day, we also managed to pick out some Eastern Gray Treefrogs.
The route we chose as a conduit between Hilltop Camp and the Nyalazi Gate in South Africa had us experiencing a couple of close calls on our last morning in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve . One incident was when we came head-to-head with a pair of massive White Rhinoceros. Read more
Pandemic birding and nature hikes have kept us close to home since March of 2020, and one of our favorite places to get outdoors is in Rouge National Urban Park. On an early June day, we were very fortunate to see an Eastern Milksnake in Bob Hunter Memorial Conservation Area. Read more
From the patio door, on our second morning at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, I saw dense fog hemming in the mountains and feared, at best, an overcast if not a rainy day. A glance at the clock revealed it to be only 5:30 a.m. Two hours later, the fog was lifting, and the sun bathed the hillsides in golden showers of light. Read more
Bob and I arrived at Hilltop Camp in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park exhausted after an extremely long day that saw us traveling from Kruger National Park and across Swaziland to get there. Over dinner, we had views of the Park from the expansive restaurant patio that overlooked muted silhouettes of undulating mountaintops while an armed guard sat unobtrusively in the shadows and watched for wildlife like Vervet Monkeys that might cross the thin electric wire just below the terrace. Read more
It was one day as Bob and I sat in the car alongside a gravel road in Kruger National Park that we saw this prime example of an African Bush Elephant. We had pulled to the side of the road to sit for a spell and eat our lunch when this behemoth stepped from the cover of thick vegetation onto the road right in front of us. Talk about lunchtime entertainment! Read more
I couldn’t help myself but every time that Bob and I saw warthogs in South Africa, I thought of Pumbaa, the warthog in the Disney film The Lion King. And when Bob and I were conducting our self-guided safaris within Kruger National Park, we saw our fair share of these unusual looking animals. Read more
Our long-anticipated arrival at Kruger National Park was like a dream come true. This journey, for me, had its roots tied to historical accounts of explorers Dr. David Livingstone and Sir Henry Stanley and their exploits on the Dark Continent. Add to that a detailed look at Kenya in one of my high school science projects, and a life-long passion to travel to the deep, dark “jungles” of Africa was born. Travel to the sub-Saharan region of the continent personified my imaginings of an exhilarating trip complete with risk, daring, incomparable wildlife adventures and unique landscape. We had to conquer our fears and fan the flames of our adventurous spirit. As we entered through the Phabeni Gate, our excitement was palpable even though I was withstanding a bout of stomach and intestinal infection that had arisen that afternoon. Read more
Our plan, when staying in La Fortuna, was to make a couple of road trips to further our exploration of the area. On our third day in Costa Rica, we were up at 5 a.m., wakened by bird song, but pouring rain had us holding off until 9 o’clock before setting off for Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge. It is considered by many to be the third most important wetland in the world. Read more