How do you measure privilege?? .. By witnessing nature at play ..

The 3rd May 2014 a day I was privileged to witness nature at play, or should I say my favourite Purple rollers mating.

I went for an early morning walk on the Sishen Golf Course, not managing much (lungs not co-operating) I got to where I’d seen the Purple Rollers for the past few days. They were there and sitting in separate trees, one in the tree where their nesting hole was and the other on a dead tree making photography a lot easier.

I sat with my back to a big tree and took photos of what turned out to be the female bird. As they are both identical in markings, I can state this after what took place. They are continuously calling to each other and the male that had been behind me noisily flew high in the sky. With rolling flight he plummeted towards the ground, it looked something like a fighter jet on a victory wing waggle.

He did this a few times flying back up for height, chattering away the whole time while she sat and watched his performance also chattering away the whole time.

His flying was just too quick for me to even think of trying to capture, his descent down to the branch and his pairing also too quick. He then joined her in the tree and begged for more….

I think like me she wanted to see more of his aerial acrobatics before she would give in to him again…