Dubai and all

Though I've been before, Dubai makes me feel like I'm on a Hollywood movie set.  Virtually every time you blink they've put up a new building and the whole place immaculately clean and intensively manicured.  A lot of the houses in the Springs Complex are built on the shores of "lakes" which are surrounded by paths, trees, lawns and thousands of bouganvillias, which is very "colonially" satisfying but rather sterile.

The main bird species (like the trees) are aliens, mynas, rose-ringed parakeets and house crows but every now and then you come across a local such as this beautiful White-eared Bulbul.

The beaches are white enough to hurt and the water crystal clear as there is very little heavy industry.  Sally knew the right spot which was almost totally devoid of humans and right across from the sheik's island and his dinky kittle "yacht".

Another stroll around the lakes on a perfect winter morning (24 C), without a breath of wind produced this mirror and ...............

............another invader in the form of Pied Myna.

Something I had to try was the Metro which is totally automated and kind of startles one initially when you see passengers standing where the driver ought to be.

For the most part it runs alongside the Sheik Rattle and Roll (or some such) highway - 16 lanes of motorway madness, thank goodness I didn't have to drive.  After crossing this by a pedestrian footbridge, Nick and I caught a taxi back to the complex - which was exceedingly cheap I thought and which Nick confirmed as they pay very little for fuel.

And the buildings, oh wow.  They seem to have got tired of straight up and down so now it's lets do a bent one  ..................

.............. or a twisted one.........

......... how about a disc?  This one seen on a trip to Abu Dhabi on my last day where Sally kindly took me to.....

.....the Sheik Zayed mosque, a slightly OTT structure which boasts the world's biggest carpet and probably the most expensive chandeliers ever made - Zwarovski crystal of course - I'll reserve my opinions for fear of Jihadists.  No shorts allowed so were were given those ankle length shirts and Sally had a black hooded thing in which she looked most becoming.



The day I arrived it rained a bit, the day I left it deluged.  See here's the thing, they don't bother with drainage in Dubai, so when it does rain the motorways become lovely big skid pans and the runways.....lakes.  So after boarding the aircraft, our captain announces a half hour delay in push back, which then caused queues on the taxi ways which resulted in another hour sitting in "traffic".  So a nine hour flight became nearly eleven. Thank goodness I had the foresight to check in to the Roadside Lodge at the airport and I arrived there just in time for sundowners - marvellous.  As things were still fairly chaotic by die see I took time out in Riebeek Kasteel to decide, where to next.  Quite a hot idea as it turned out, I didn't see the official figures by a fellow I chatted with at the local garage said 48 C.  My room was equipped with a fan and I was stripped off and lying on the bed when there's a knock on the door and my hosts' head appears with a chilled bunch of his very own grapes - glad it wasn't the wife.  Also had dinner with friends whose house was airconditioned - bliss.  The only person I could think of to scrounge off for a week was my sister, so grabbed a flight to Joeys and spent the next week in dear old Boksburg.  This is the cottage where my mother spent the last years of her life and it looks out onto a little jewel of a garden, though Beth will tell you otherwise.

There are at least four cats, never really sure, and they include Dusty, (she apparently arrived covered in wind-blown mine-dump) a stunner who was my mom's favourite, three dogs and dozens of wild birds surprisingly. And the weather? Hottest day on record in Joburg 39 C but then some wonderful rain.

Now for the ornithology bit.  Probably 20 years ago I borrowed some skins from David Allan 
at the museum to do a day-time talk where I couldn't use a slide projector - remember them?  One specimen I took was an Olive Thrush and I noticed that the tray was split into two lots of about 15 birds each.  On querying this I was shown the differences.  The ones on the left were smaller, had a completely orange beak and sported less orange on the belly and David was sure that they were a seperate species.  Subsequent analysis proved him correct and voila in the next Robert's  we had Karoo and Olive thrushes.  This is a regular visitor to Beth's garden - see if you can tell which it is.

Karoo - korrect.  Reports of Spotted Crake at Marievale had me on me bike to join the queue, this is only what was left as there must have been 20 vehilces when I arrived.  It did eventually put in an appearance to give me my 760 th species but while we were waiting....

.... this Purple Heron decided to steal the limelight.  The crake was too far away for a picture and even binocular views were a bit disappointing, but Marievale wasn't finished yet.  Next day came a sighting of a Pallid Harrier which had me roaring out to Nigel once more.

On my way to where it was seen I bumped into an African Snipe sitting quietly next to the road, so I took this through the windscreen and of course as soon as I opened the window for the money shot.........damn

No harrier so back to the Crake spot where I was the only person present and I soon found one, much closer that before and sat down to see if I could get it on record.  This was the best I could do, but you can see the spots.........can't you?  I did have the satisfaction of pointing it out to half a dozen others who arrived later.