This will blow your mind.

in Photography Lovers2 years ago (edited)

We had the most amazing experience and I hope that you will enjoy this as much as we did.
449.jpg

Now what kind of bird statue is this that was placed at the front entrance of the beautiful old wine farm house.

Before I say a word further, please watch this video in order to see what I am talking about.

Yes, we read a story about the Runner Ducks on a wine farm here and we went to investigate, as we wanted to see it for ourselves.
As luck would have it, the farm has two great restaurants and by chance the manager of the one restaurant is an old friend of ours. So we instantly heard most of the story about the ducks and also a bit of the history of the farm.
Come and see what we saw.

This is the entrance to this historic wine estate and at the right you can see the security offices that monitors all entries and exists.
029.JPG

And there they were! They had a long walk and were stopped here to take a short rest on their way to work.
011.JPG

I cleanly forgot about my cup of coffee and excitedly grabbed the camera to show you.

Here is a paragraph from the farm's website.

Vergenoegd Löw is one of the most intact of the early Cape farms and a very important heritage site, national monument, part of the European Heritage Project and a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) partner. This estate - now 325 years old - tells the stories of the owners, their families, slaves, Khoi labourers and farm life over three centuries. It is a fascinating tale of a host of individual vrijburger and other farmers who farmed with grapes, wines, different kinds of livestock, crops and feed grains.

Source
026.JPG

Look how cleverly the ducks gathered in the shade of the tree.
052.JPG

I can imagine in times past, that the slaves also rested in the shade of this tree, as you can see the slave bell hanging there in the background.
230.JPG

Now you can see why there was a statue of a runner duck in front of the old building.
371.JPG

But wait! Now they have to go and work.

The handlers roused the ducks and they filed obediently and perfectly in line on their way to work.
059.JPG

080.JPG

091.JPG

Gathered here to wait for the instructions so that they can know in which grape vineyard that they will work today.
130.JPG

The lead handler arrived, and he guided them to their place of work.
149.JPG

So that is the vineyard on the right that they will work in until they return later in the afternoon.
173.JPG

A prize winning wine, "Double Gold" was bottled to honor the work of the ducks.
514.JPG

We were also taken on a photo tour of the entire premises and although the interior of the buildings and in the other restaurant was fantastic, my main attention was focused on the dam on the property. There were so many wild birds on the dam and luckily for me, some that I have never seen before. So, my camera and I had a very happy time at that dam.
I will show you in some other posts the buildings and the views, and of course I will also show you, in some posts, the wild bird photos that I took at the dam.
But for now, I hope that you have enjoyed this happy adventure.

So have a look at this website to see one of the earliest wine farms in our area and put this one also on your list when you visit the Western Cape Province wine route in South Africa.

https://vergenoegd.co.za/

And That's All Friends.

Photos by Zac Smith-All Rights Reserved.

Camera: Canon Powershot SX70HS Bridge camera.

Thank you kindly for supporting a post on behalf of @papilloncharity

Sort:  

Beautiful 🥰🥰

An unique place. At first glance, I thought It was real duck 😱

Thank you and we are so glad that history has left so many old original wine farms over here for us to explore.
That duck statue also had me fooled, until we saw the real ducks !LOL

Environmentally friendly pest control!
And it looks like no ducks are harmed in the process.. 😍
Love it!

Thank you for sharing our love and yes, so wonderful to see that no pesticides are use. Good for the animals and for the atmosphere.
They sure do take a loving care of their duck runner family, and I think that you saw in the video that the ducks have a nice big house where they stay at night time !LOLZ

What a wonderful demonstration of how people can use animals in the right way. Ducks are happy as they get to eat as many treats as they can (snails and insects) and they ve a job to go to, they ve purpose ❤️

I would not eat a duck either as I'm a vegetarian 😋

All animals are like these ducks, the cows, pigs are even smarter than dogs apparently.

Thank you and that purpose thing of the use of the ducks is so ideal for the healing of nature.
A threefold purpose, as the ducks have a home, they are employed and they have food.
I cannot say that about many people that our charity helps.

The best of all is that it is all eco-friendly and no pesticides are used.

!WINEX


Congratulations, @papilloncharity You Successfully Shared 0.100 WINEX With @martina123.
You Earned 0.100 WINEX As Curation Reward.
You Utilized 1/2 Successful Calls.

wine_logo


Contact Us : WINEX Token Discord Channel
WINEX Current Market Price : 0.130


Swap Your Hive <=> Swap.Hive With Industry Lowest Fee (0.1%) : Click This Link
Read Latest Updates Or Contact Us

Brilliant @papilloncharity, I just love it! Eco-friendly too!

'n Boer maak 'n plan

Thank you Lady Lizzie and I think that a law should be made for all of the farms to use runner ducks for pest control. Eco-friendly indeed and a great plan !LOLZ

Congratulations @papilloncharity! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)

You received more than 400000 upvotes.
Your next target is to reach 410000 upvotes.

You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

Check out our last posts:

HiveBuzz World Cup Contest - Recap of the Final
The Hive Gamification Proposal Renewal

Lovely natural scenery and location. Perfect traveling place.

Thank you and indeed it is a perfect travelling destination. Much to see and to enjoy!

What a beautiful place with those ducks learning to move harmoniously. They are so amazing to look at and so clever to find a good shade. 😍

Those ducks are like a battalion of army soldiers on the march. They know exactly where to go and they also know that they are on their way to work.


The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the people( @papilloncharity ) sharing the post on Twitter as long as they are registered with @poshtoken. Sign up at https://hiveposh.com.

Wow! That is a lot of ducks :D I've always been impressed by how disciplined and in sync birds are. These are picturesque examples 💙

Yep, a small army :D Perfectly in tune when on the march to work.
Thank you for the compliment.

!LUV

So cute… and all are sheltered in the shade. Pretty cool to see.
Have a wonderful week further Zac! 👋🏻😊

Thank you and sheltering in shade, before going off to work. Clever birds.

Hope that your adventure will also be great for this period Jackie!

You are welcome, yep… clever clever 😉

Thanks Zac, so far all good. Hopping around to friends and family for the next weeks 😁 so it will be great!
Have a wonderful evening 👋🏻

Certainly sounds like you guys will be having some good times and deservedly so 😊

Hope that your evening will also be good Jackie.

We do Zac, thanks so much. We will enjoy it all!

Thank you kindly, so far it is… hope yours too.
Have a good night 😴

Good and then all is well that can be well 😊

This is so great. Nature helping to controll pests. Ducks are great!

Thank you and yes, it is a wise decision to use the ducks for pest control.
They are great workers,

!PIZZA

Nice story line !!! Nice to know about this farm !!

Thank you for the nice reply!

You’re always welcome boss

Lovely! It is best place to travel and you photography has increased the beauty of place.
I also take some photographs if you want to see check out our page @taleofpaint

Amazing! Looks like a very pleasant day at the vineyard.

We are snowed under here, but not with snow, instead we have 4 power cuts per day. So I apologize for the late reply.
We certainly had a very pleasant time at the farm. One of the oldest farms in the country.

Blessings and have some !PIZZA

🍕 PIZZA !

I gifted $PIZZA slices here:
papilloncharity tipped florian-glechner (x1)
@papilloncharity(1/10) tipped @ironshield (x1)

Please vote for pizza.witness!

You are right! Mind-blowing stuff! I love how they just muster and wait for the handler to show them where to work. Almost like, yeah, this guy is going to show us where to most grub is, which happens to be the vineyard with the most pests! Symbiosis!