Still on our game drive through Kruger National Park, we continued on our second day hoping to see more wild animals.

 

First we spotted an owl:

After looking at the herd of Impala buck (in last week’s travel blog) we drove a little way along the road before our daughter suddenly noticed an owl. 

It was sitting quietly, well hidden in the twiggy foliage of a tree. She stopped the car so we could have a better look at it. 

It was a Pearl Spotted owl. 

Because they are small owls, they eat small birds and small things like lizards, caterpillars, grasshoppers, beetles, etc. You tend to find it in savanna woodlands and in torn trees. It nests in holes in trees, preferably near rivers and streams. 

Odd type of camouflage:

Perhaps I should of said the word: Deception!

Our daughter said this owl is very cleverly camouflaged, because you never which way it is looking or whether it’s asleep or not. The reason been, is that it  has feathers at the back of its head that are designed to look like closed eyes.  

The only way you can tell those eyes are for real or not, are the fact the breast of the owl has more white on it, than the darker back view.  

Overall, the owl has white spots against a background of brown feathers.  

But the front of the owl is mostly white, except for a few sparse vertical brown streaks, and those brown streaks have white spot on them too. 

Check out the owl in my photo below and see if you think it has its front or back view to us?! Sorry the photo is so blurred, I had to zoom in and my camera doesn’t do very far zooms. 

I think he was turning his head to look our way. That looks like a beak between the eyes?

And here are two photos of the owl from a bird book my husband has:

 

Carrying on along the Matjulu Loop road after spotting the owl, you have this scene: 

My watercolour painting:

 

This watercolour size is .420 x 590m. The highlight effects were also done in bubble technic style. Remember my previous  Kruger park blog where I  promised to show you how to create this technique.

Well this is how you do it:

1. The way you do it, is to first apply liquid masking with an eyedropper. Choose a dropper with the right size nozzle hole for the job.  
2. Tip: When finished with the masking liquid, wash the dropper in fresh clean water. And if any bits of the rubber masking are still stuck in the dropper, poke it out with a pipe cleaner `stick’. 
3. When the masking is dry on the painting, paint freely all over the painting including the masking.   
4. And when the paint is dry, gently rub off the masking with your fingers. 
5. If the watercolour is roughened by any chance, smooth it with the back of a small teaspoon.  
6. Then finish the painting by filling in the spots where the masking used to be, with suitable colours, ether with contrasting highlight colours, or with fresh analogous colours that sit comfortably within their surroundings.  

Interesting note:  

• Contrasting (complementary) colours sit opposite on the colour wheel. 
• Analogous colours sit on the same side of the colour wheel.  

Two Elephants & some giraffes:

And along that road, we also came across a couple of elephants, quietly minding their own business just off the dust road. 

Then we discovered this giraffe and an Impala buck who decided to walk just then into the photo as well.