Sunday walk on Saturday

Always surprises! A different route, and on Saturday, because of dire weather warnings for tomorrow, although the promised 25mm is more like 2.5mm on the forecast now! Only last week we remarked on the lack of tortoises, so I was very pleased to spot this one, who soon showed me a clean pair of heels! Yes, as expected, the plant about to flower we've been watching for a couple of weeks, is a Roella. If every tip makes a flower, then it will be impressive soon! Back to where the Drosera were, I really don't know what's what. The little red stems from last week seem to have branched out and become green, but what are these tiny flowers? There were some big flowers on some of the Pseudo selago serratas: Living up to their common name of purple powder puff: And if you look carefully, there are still plenty of the small pink flowers on the Lanaria lanata: We just had to go off the road to inspect this Mesemb, with its last few flowers, recently exposed by clearing of pines: We remember from last year that there were plenty of Ericas from the beginning of the year, in fact they haven't really stopped. Very different from last week's Many Umbrellas! And the first of the upright types, in bud still: The big surprise I spotted a long way off: We think this is Watsonia schlechteri This meant quite a walk off the road, and brought me close to the Agapanthus walshii, which luckily escaped damage with the recent pine-clearing, seen pushing up one bud a few weeks ago: There's another flower coming, too: Also in that area were Therianthus too: Outside the farm during the week an irrigation pipe was being repaired and I took this shot of Acanthus mollis growing wild. It doesn't look like it but I couldn't reach the tips of the flowers from the ground! Then on the way home yesterday evening, this Jackal Buzzard posed for me, while it pondered what had happened to the telephone lines: :-) A