Mua in 2012

 

Last year I went to Mua with a 

visiting student, Mel.

 

The museum has a lot of history about 

three of the Malawian tribes.

We drove back along the lakeshore.

Weaver birds

 Some spectacled weavers visited my 

house a couple of weeks ago.

The female went all around the 

house, trying to peck 

her way into the windows.

 The male has a black patch 

under his bill.

One day a southern masked 

weaver also came by.

Twilight

I took some twilight pictures of Lake 

Theo and some windmills a couple 

of years ago, and just this week noticed 

something different about them.

 

Here I wanted the reflection

 of the trees in the lake.

 

If you look just left of the trees, you 

can see the silhouette of a deer. 

 Here are windmills against the sunset.

 But here it looks like the windmills 

are spinning really fast, when 

it was really my exposure time 

getting longer.

Drongos and Sunbirds

Female Amethyst Sunbird, left of middle

and hanging in the top left

 Forked-tailed Drongo

 

Baby Drongo?

Around the house

 

The rain has made the roses beautiful...

 

And the house geckos are...

Having babies...

And the snails are climbing trees

 to stay out of the water.

Church painting

Along the road from Mwanza, I noticed that 

the small Catholic churches were all 

getting a paint job.

Beautiful colors!

Mwanza 4

 These are Brachistegia trees, typical 

of these dry forests.  They are left 

because they are poor firewood.

 Charcoal, the main product

of Mwanza.

Crushed rocks in three colors, 

another major product of  Mwanza.

Mwanza 3

The landscape was desolate.

 Trees of any size had been 

burned into charcoal.

 Even here there was beauty.

Mwanza 2

The land that we were studying 

is rough and dry and rocky,

With occasional patches of 

soil in the valleys.

Taking samples in the rocky 

soil was difficult.

Mwanza 2012

We did a land degradation study in  

Mwanza a couple of months ago.

Mwanza and Neno are the two districts 

in Malawi where there is the 

most charcoal burning.

Mwanza is a border crossing, 

so it swarms with trucks.

Mota Engil is building a railroad through 

the southern part of the country, also 

through our study site.

Last of London Hampton Court Palace (2)

 

My camera battery went out, so I bought 

some post cards.

This was a residence of Henry the 8th.

 Here is Henry's Hall

 

The chapel is beautiful.

The grounds are extensive.

Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

The flower show was on the grounds 

of Hampton Court Palace.

 The displays were from associations 

and garden suppliers from all over England.

 The displays were beautiful

Kew Green

 

We stayed at the Coach and 

Horses Hotel in Kew

 

 

 One morning I got up early to take pictures 

of the shops around the town green.

 It seemed like an old and settled place.

This park bench was dedicated to a 

couple who lived in Kew for 80 years.