An Olive Thrush making lunch.

Her babies cannot eat a big long earth worm, so she made a plan.

This happened in the last bit of sunshine that we now have seen for the past 2 days. Now the skies are dark and everyone is glad about the rain that's coming down. A bit of bad news is that a Level 4 warning was sent out by the weatherman, alerting the rescue services, as big storms and hail are expected inland in the Overberg and Cape Winelands. Thankfully the grape and apple harvests are complete, but hail is never good news.
But I digress, and come to see what I have to share with you today.

This was how it started, and you can see the long juicy worm that she found.

She nipped a piece of the worm off and looked to see if I was impressed. Sort of; Look ma, no hands :)

And now you can watch her progress below, as she broke the worm into 3 or 4 parts.

A bit of interesting history about the discovery of the Cape Olive Thrush.

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the olive thrush in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. He used the French name Le merle olive du Cap de Bonne Espérance and the Latin Merula Olivacea Capitis Bonae Spei. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the olive thrush. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Turdus olivaceus and cited Brisson's work.

Source

Wow! Her kids are going to be dancing when she arrives with the lunch.

Nature holds so many little treasures to keep one spell bound.

One must never think that what appears to be ordinary, cannot hold the extra-ordinary. So, for example, if we see a little bird or creature, or plant or cloud, and we think...oh no, same old, same old. If we do this, we will miss the specialness and uniqueness of each and every living creature. As humans, we have the habit of regarding often sighted birds or animals as just ho-hum. But not to be, as there are always a few surprises when one starts to take a closer look at their habits and other tricks.
So, the next time that you see something "ordinary", spend a bit of time to study it, as you might just get a big surprise.

I hope you have enjoyed the story and the pictures.

Photos by Zac Smith-All Rights Reserved.

Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.

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