Derek Keats: Blog

Talking about things that interest me, and hopefully interest you too.

The natural world

The natural world has always fascinated me, and this is why I studied biology at university. I will try to post some of my observations here, hoping that I may kindle interests in nature in someone else.

Cheetah — This morning I was playing around in DarkTable, improving my skills at using its awesome capability. I used a photo of a Half-collared Kingfisher that was in deep shadow, and accidentally shot at ISO6400 because I had forgotten to change my settings from when i was taking eagles in flight in […]

Photographers – buy equipment not software

21st October 2017 in Free and open source software / Nature photography / Ubuntu tagged FOSS for photographers / photography / photography tips by Derek Keats

Rangiroa — Arthur C. Clarke wrote “How inappropriate to call this planet ‘Earth’ when it is quite clearly ‘Ocean’.” I have been lucky that during my days as a marine biologist I got to travel around and explore this planet called Ocean, and even find and describe some new species from our […]

How inappropriate to call this planet ‘Earth’ when it is ...

16th July 2017 in Diving, underwater and intertidal / The natural world tagged marine life / oceans by Derek Keats

Lion cub — In April, I was lucky enough to be in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park for two weeks. It is a very special place, beautiful and wild. There are lots of animals, you do have to work for them though. The distances are long, and the road rough. Lions were seen almost every […]

Lions of Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

22nd May 2017 in Nature photography tagged Kgalagadi / lions by Derek Keats

Giant Kingfisher — I am going to try a little activity log for a change. Today, unusually in the afternoon, I went up to look for the Verreaux’s Eagle (black eagle) at Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden in Roodeport. As usual, the garden was full of people enjoying the lawns and scenery for […]

Giant kingfishers at Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden

20th May 2017 in Birds and bird photography tagged birding / kingfisher by Derek Keats

Strangely, even though I have been chasing birds around the bush for about five years now, and half seriously for at least three years, I had not photographed a black-faced waxbill (Estrilda erythronotos) waxbill until last weekend at Zaagkuildrift. This waxbill is a common species of estrildid finch found in southern Africa, especially […]

The black-faced waxbills of Zaagkuildrift

22nd March 2017 in Birds and bird photography tagged birding / birds by Derek Keats

Olive-tree warbler — Last weekend (March 17-19) was spent providing food for mosquitoes and learning warblers with Etienne Marais and Sheleph Burger. Every year many millions of warblers make the journey from the northern hemisphere all the way to Africa, many of them overwintering (the northern winter) in South Africa. Etienne put on […]

Warbler weekend at Zaagkuildrift

21st March 2017 in Birds and bird photography by Derek Keats

Wrymouth — Ghost fish seemed an appropriate name the first time I saw one, For a fleeting second, in the light of my diving lamp; a whitish spotted head protruding from the mud disappeared as it swallowed up by the sea floor itself. Closer inspection revealed a 10 cm diameter hole in […]

The wrymouth a ghost of a fish

6th October 2016 in Diving, underwater and intertidal / The natural world tagged diving / fish / ghostfish / ichthyology / muddy bottom / Newfoundland / research opportunity / strange creatures / Terra Nova National Park / wrymouth by Derek Keats

This article was published in Diver magazine in 1990. In the sky there is only one moon, but the sea can be packed full of small gently-drifting moons, among which the neutrally buoyant diver can float like an astronaut of magnificent proportions. These lunar animals are, of course, moon jellies (Aurelia […]

Lunar beauty of the summer seas

18th August 2016 in Diving, underwater and intertidal / The natural world tagged diving / moon jelly / nature / underwater by Derek Keats

Crowned eagle — We took a five days in the second week of August 2016 to visit Ndumo Nature Reserve in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Ndumo is located in the far northeast district of KwaZulu-Natal Province known as Maputaland, on the border with Mozambique and adjacent to Swaziland where the Pongola River joins the Great […]

Ndumo: birds of prey with adaptations to the forest

14th August 2016 in Birds and bird photography by Derek Keats

The passing of a caterpillar from male to female Diederik cuckoo — A few people have asked me how to take pictures of birds, and I often get asked by casual observers how I do bird photography. Most bird people know this already, so this is really just for the people who ask me so I can point them somewhere. I often […]

Bird photography tips – what you do

12th June 2016 in Birds and bird photography / Nature photography tagged photography tips by Derek Keats