SPRINGTIME 2024

 SPRINGTIME 2024

Oh dear! You get "no rain", "good rain" and "bad rain". We've had a lot of the first and the last, and not enough of the middle one! Rain didn't arrive very late this season, with our first downpour in the middle of October, but last season's rain ended rather early, so it was a particularly long dry season. 

I remember, in my Springtime 2023 blog, I mentioned that, although we had had less than normal rainfall so far for that season, the nature of the rain, falling softly for extended periods of time, was so good that all that water had a chance to get absorbed into the ground, thus filling up the aquifers, ensuring waterflow throughout the year, even during the dry season. To see more on the importance of our grasslands as a water catchment, refer to my blog of March 2022 (8th article).

So, of the average of 160mm that has fallen on the estate over thirteen occurrences since the 10th of October to the end of November, less than half has been soft and absorbing, the rest has been violent with massive run-off, taking a lot of topsoil and attendant seeds with it directly to Mozambique! Not very good for us at all.

Still, with the resilience of nature, the estate is finally starting to green-up, although the river levels are still worryingly low, and all the life associated with it has kicked into action, bringing with it some lovely encounters which I will feature below:

I suppose many may think that this is not one of those lovely encounters, eh? But anyway, with the arrival of the rains, comes the arrival of the mosquitos too. I have noticed that the genus Anopheles is the most prevalent on the estate of the two genera in the mozzie family, and this genus is the one that is responsible for carrying the Malaria protozoan Plasmodium species. Fortunately for us, the elevation and climate on the estate are not suitable for the protozoan, so although we have many potential carriers flying about, they will not be affected. Maybe with climate change that will change, though.

These mozzies have a very short life cycle, lasting from a mere two weeks to as much as six weeks, depending on the species and the temperature. Eggs are laid singly onto the surface of the water where they float till hatching (unlike the other mosquito genus, Aedes, Anopheles eggs have floats attached to the sides), which occurs within two to three days.

Also, unlike the Aedes genus, Anopheles larvae do not have a breathing siphon attached to their abdomen, so they lie parallel with the water's surface so that they can breathe with the spiracles on their abdomens. Aedes with their breathing siphon, on the other hand, hang head-down from the water's surface with their siphons on the surface. This is a very good way to identify malaria mosquitos when they are still larvae.

The larvae have a large head with mouth brushes that filter out microorganisms, like algae and bacteria, from the thin surface film of the water. After four instars, when the larva grows too big for its skin, and so sheds and grows a bigger skin, the larva turns into a pupa, which looks like a little three-dimensional comma floating, thick part up, on the surface of the water. 

It will then take a few days to develop into an adult, which will emerge from the pupal case and fly off in search of a mate and food, which consists of nectar from night-blooming flowers, making mosquitos a very important night-time pollinating species. It is only the female mosquito that seeks out a blood meal, and that is only when she has been mated with and is ready to develop her eggs.

To achieve this, she has carbon dioxide receptors in her palps, the two thick antennae-looking things sticking out ninety degrees from her head in the picture (this is also a good identification feature of the Anopheles genus, because with the Aedes genus, they hang down with the rest of the mouthparts). These receptors pick up the carbon dioxide emitted from our bodies and so help the mosquito find a blood host.

Interestingly, these receptors are particularly sensitive to the very particular carbon dioxide complex that is emitted by human feet! This helps them find a human ankle, where the skin is thin, and the blood pressure is highest, perfect for a juicy blood meal!

Another interesting fact: If the female is infected by the malaria plasmodium, these receptors become more sensitive and the protozoan even changes the mosquito's behavior, making her more desperate and willing to take more chances to get her meal, increasing its chances of finding a human host.

Anyway, once she has had her blood meal, fifty to two hundred eggs develop within her, and she deposits these, singly, on the water's surface. 

And the cycle continues.....

I featured this very same photo in my blog of March 2020, where the identification was narrowed down to the Anopheles gambiae complex, of which there are seven or so species. Since then, though, I have had input from a specialist who was very sure it was Anopheles merus, and she stated many reasons for it. She did say, though, that the larvae of that species develops in salt water, either on the coast or in salty marshes inland. She points out two salty marshes in the Kruger Park where that species has been recorded from. 

I told her that I was unaware of any salty marshes or water on the estate and explained that I was bitten by this particular individual in a dark, forested gorge by a fast-flowing stream. She said that the only species it could be then, which resembles A .merus is Anopheles ardensis, which is very rare and is not known to bite humans (Hmmn, maybe I'm not as human as I thought!).

So, it is either the one or the other. She is still convinced it is A. merus but she asked me to capture the next one I find, and if she can get it under a microscope, she will be able to tell me which one it is.

Although this looks like a normal caterpillar, it is actually a Sawfly larva, Arge sp, the most primitive member of the Hymenoptera order (bees, wasps and ants). The Hymenoptera is the most recently evolved order of insects, with the most primitive being the Archaeognatha order, primitive fishmoth-looking insects (refer to my blog of Summer's End 2024 that I posted in May). 

Unlike the rest of the order, an adult sawfly is easy to identify because, although it resembles a wasp (see blog of January 2020 for a pic of an adult), it does not have a narrow restriction between the thorax and abdomen like all other Hymenopterans. Regarding larvae like this one, the sawflies have five pairs of prolegs as opposed to the four pairs found on the Lepidopterans.  

Another striking difference between the Sawfly and other Hymenopterans is the fact that the female's ovipositor has not been modified into a stinger, instead it has remained as an ovipositor but with serrated edges so that it can saw its way into plant tissue in which to lay her eggs (hence the name Sawfly).

Many Sawflies, however harmless they are, resemble other more dangerous members of the Hymenoptera, like bees and stinging wasps. This mimicry, when a harmless insect mimics a harmful insect, or a tasty insect mimics a poisonous insect, is called Batesian mimicry as opposed to Mullerian mimicry, where a poisonous insect mimics another poisonous insect. or a harmful insect mimics another harmful insect. 

The problem with Batesian mimicry is that predators often have to learn which colours mean danger on its prey animals by eating one and getting sick because it was poisonous or getting hurt because it was harmful, only to learn that in the future it will not go near an insect that looks like that again. 

So Batesian mimicry only works when the population of the mimic does not exceed twenty five percent of the population of the model because, if that happens then the predators will probably eat the harmless ones as well and decide that not all prey items that look like that are harmful and this will negate the effect of the aposematic colouration (warning colours). A good example illustrating this fact is a species of butterfly, a Common Diadem, where the very edible female mimics an African Monarch butterfly which is very poisonous. The Common Diadem keeps the mimicry low by only allowing the females of the species to mimic the Monarch while the less important male Diadem looks like a completely different species of butterfly.

Anyway, back to the Sawfly: After she lays her eggs within the fleshy parts of leaves or stems, the larvae, who look very much like a worm caterpillar, hatch and chew a hole to the outside world, exit and begin to devour the leaves, usually in groups. The larval stage can last anywhere from a single season to more than a year. That's lots of leaves to devour!

The pupal stage is spent in a neatly woven, silken cocoon. Male specimens in many species are yet to be found, suggesting they may reproduce parthenogenetically, like the female being cloned over and over. This lack of needing to find a mate results in an extremely short adult life span of just over a week. Then, the adult emerges, and the cycle continues.

Another lovely shot sent to me by Dave De Vos from "The Crofts" (unit 19). This time of a Pied Kingfisher, Ceryle rudis, in flight. just after it had alighted from a tree beside the Sharktank (W3) near the hatchery.

Although they are certainly the most widespread and common of our fish-eating kingfishers, they are not very common here because they prefer large, unwooded, slow-moving bodies of water than what you find here on the estate. In fact, they are quite nomadic and are prone to move away when the water levels become too low and if it becomes too cold, and the only time they become sedentary and territorial, is when they nest. And then, they only defend the nest hole and the area directly around it, only until the fledglings have emerged from the nest.

Their diet consists of fish, crabs and aquatic insects and their larvae, which they catch from a perch nearby, called hawking, or by hovering directly above the water and dropping straight down on their prey. They use the latter strategy more because it is more successful than hawking, although it does use a significantly larger amount of energy. They also have a special adaption to help them avoid breaking their necks when they hit the water on a dive: They have solid bone neck vertebrae, unlike the super lightweight aero-like bones that are found in other birds and the rest of the Pied Kingfishers body.

Interestingly, only a handful of birds on the planet can truly achieve sustained hovering in still air, and this is one of them. The others include some hawks, like our Black-shouldered Kite, most sunbirds and, of course, Hummingbirds who have perfected it, even able to reverse while hovering. Many other birds, like our Snake Eagles can also hover, but they require a headlong wind to achieve it. This is the only Kingfisher that can truly hover, though. 

A side note: Sunbirds hover on two occasions, when they are slurping up nectar from smaller flowers with no foothold to land, and when they pick spiders out of their webs, which is a common sight.

Pied kingfishers are monogamous breeders (only a single mate), that solicit help from up to four male helpers when nesting. the nest is a half meter to two-meter-long horizontal hole burrowed out from a vertical bank, low down and close to the water surface, excavated by the parents.

The female does most of the incubating while her mate and the primary helper/s provide her with food. The primary helper/s are sons from the previous brood, while secondary helpers consist of unrelated males that could not find a mate, or those that failed to breed. The population of Pied Kingfishers is skewed towards males by a ratio of about 1.8:1, which explains why there is a surplus of males in the system. The cause of this is believed to be because the female incubates and broods in the nighttime, and predation is more common then, mainly by Water Mongoose who dig up the nest, or snakes that slither down the passage. The primary helpers are active from the beginning, while the secondary helpers only get involved once the chicks have hatched.

After about four weeks, the fledglings emerge from the nest hole and immediately begin their foraging training from their parents, while the helpers contribute to feeding them all. The youngsters can already dive for their food within a fortnight, but it takes up to two months for them to become self-sufficient.

Nice one, Dave! And thank you. Please, a request to all members. I am proud to have photos accompanying all of the species (plants, animals and birds at around 1500 species) that I have encountered on the estate. These photos have all been taken on the estate, except for birds! I do not have the camera (even if I did, it would be too bulky for me to carry around during my normal duties) that can take decent photos of birds, so the list I have created for birds is full of copyright-free photos taken off the internet. I would love to have ALL photos taken here on the estate. Dave is and has supplied many of these so far, but there is still over a hundred-and-fifty species that require a locally taken photograph. So, if you have or can, donate your photos of birds. The photo will be credited to you when it is displayed.

What odd-looking thing is this? It is an adult Cicada bug emerging from its pupal case, high up in the grasslands on Mount Prospect.

Cicadas are best known to us by the loud, high-pitched, incessant buzzing sound that the males produce to attract the attention of a potential mate. The females hear this with their tympanal organs (ear-like) which pick-up and analyse sounds, particularly the mating buzz of the males. The males also have these hearing organs so that they can space themselves but must disconnect them when calling because the sound he produces can reach, in some species, one hundred and twenty decibels (a gunshot is around 130db) and that would damage his own hearing.

If you manage to catch one of these bugs, which is quite an achievement, and turn it on its back, it is easy to distinguish between male and female: The female will have a sharp, scythe-like appendage (ovipositor) at the tip of her abdomen while the male will not. Instead, he will have two semicircular plates at the rear underside of his abdomen which cover his sound-producing organs. Both sexes "ears" are situated here in the abdomen too. 

The sound-producing organ of the male is, in effect, two separate membranes supported by powerful muscles that vibrate and "pop" the membranes up and down, very much the same as you pressing the bottom of a coffee tin in and out. Most of the remainder of the male's abdomen is hollow which helps amplify the sound. The hollow cavity in the males' abdomen also has folded membranes on each side that can be unfolded and re-folded to adjust the volume of the sound produced and when the bug calls it constantly adjusts the volume, and this helps to create a ventriloquist type of scenario where it is difficult for predators (and curious human beings) to pinpoint the location of the insect, but, strangely, not the females.

Once the female responds to the mating call and mating is complete, she will cut a slit into the bark of a branch or twig and lay an egg within, repeating this process until she has laid all her eggs. After about six weeks, the nymphs hatch from the egg and drop onto the floor and immediately burrow into the ground with their powerful, folding forelimbs. They dig down until they encounter the roots of a plant and then create a little chamber in which they will reside while they puncture the root and the xylem within with their rigid proboscis and suck the juices out. The xylem is the vascular pathway that transports water and minerals from the roots to the rest of the plant.

These Cicada nymphs will reside underground, burrowing from root to root, until they are fully developed. Most species are referred to as "annual cicadas" and their nymphs will spend from two to nine years feeding like this underground before they are fully developed and ready to transform into an adult. But at least two species in North America (and more than likely in Africa too) are referred to as "periodic cicadas" and they synchronise their breeding and egg-laying activities so that the nymphs emerge thirteen and seventeen years later respectively, en masse! This strategy is employed to increase the survival rate of the insect by flooding the "market" with youngsters so that, even with a high predation rate, the survival rate will be adequate for the species' survival.

Also, and this is interesting, it reduces the chances of a specialised predator from evolving because the long time frame between the emergence of the generations is longer than most insects will live, forcing them to find other prey species. 

Periodic cicadas or not, when the nymph emerges from underground, it climbs up the base of a tree trunk and secures itself there with its powerful forelegs and then rests. After a while, the skin on the back of the nymph splits open and the adult slowly emerges, wings and all. This is the stage this individual is at in the photograph above. In the photo, you can see that the wings are still all scrunched up. It will need to rest while they harden and gain shape before it can fly away, a dangerous time for the insect! Certainly so, because if I were a hunter-gatherer, I would have slurped it up! 

 Adults retain productive mouthparts and, instead of feeding underground from the roots of a plant, they puncture the stem of the plant above ground and suck the juices from there. The big rounded "nose", easily visible on the nymph and the adult, houses the pumping muscles that suck the fluids from the host plant.

This, then, is an example of an extremely long-lived insect, as opposed to the Sawfly and the Mosquito above. The insect world is truly variable! 

This is a Long-horned Caddisfly, from the Leptoceridae family, that I encountered in a dark and moist piece of forested gorge running from Mount Anderson down to Hidden Valley. It is very exciting for me because it is only the second species of Caddisfly that I have ever seen! The other species, which is relatively common in our area, although easily overlooked, I featured in my blog of May 2019. 

The mouthparts of Caddisflies are very underdeveloped, and most adults do not feed at all. The Caddisfly I featured in that blog does eat, and I mentioned how easy it is to identify them by the characteristic s-shaped dance it performs on the substrate while sweeping up microorganisms with its brush-like jaws. Well, this little critter was doing the same dance, which means it must also feed as an adult, unlike the majority of species. Mmmn?

As I mentioned, Caddisflies are very closely related, but more primitive, than moths and butterflies from the insect order Lepidoptera, which means "Scaled Wing". These chaps do not have scales on their wings, but hairs instead, and the name of the Caddisfly order is Trichoptera, which means "Hairy Wing". So, as adults they resemble one another but the mouthparts are different, and the one has scaley wings while the other has hairy wings.

In the larval stage, they differ in a much bigger way. Moths and butterflies have caterpillars, resembling the Sawfly larva at the beginning of this blog. Caddisflies, though, have larvae that may resemble caterpillars, but they are aquatic, living in the crystal-clear mountain streams, and they are usually protected by a silken case covered in well-placed local debris, from sticks and sand particles to chewed off pieces of vegetation. This affinity with fresh water makes these insects good bioindicators, which are species that can be used to measure environmental health, because they are very sensitive to water pollution. Very different from the caterpillars we know. 

Although most of us here at Finsbury do know them. Many dry flies are tied to imitate the adults, while wet flies are used to imitate the larvae. Adults are often referred to as "sedges" in fly-fishing parlance, or so I have heard. 

Not only has the weather been rather poor for us this springtime, but it was also abnormal at the end of winter. It was extremely hot and dry with banshee-like winds tearing across the mountains. This is perfect weather for runaway fires, and it didn't disappoint!

We were constantly on edge because the fires in the area were so severe, they were jumping fifty-meter-wide firebreaks with ease and causing mayhem wherever they occurred! We helped extinguish two of these fires west of us, in the plots before the reserve.

On two other occasions, we had runaway fires on the estate, and believe me, they were a real battle to extinguish. Each fire was a three-day battle with the second being particularly harsh.

But we survived and, because of all the fires around us, and the lack of rainfall, I have not done any management burns before Christmas like I usually do. I will do a few Patch Mosaic burns later in the season, especially in the south of the estate.

Uh oh, I can feel a bunch of members wondering why I didn't catch this little fellow and ring its neck! It is a young Spotted-necked Otter, Hydrictis maculicollis, which I stumbled upon between the office and my house in the middle of the day. When it saw that I had seen it, it tried to run away, but since they are not well designed for travel over land, I caught up to it quite easily.

I initially thought it must be a baby Cape Clawless Otter because it was so small, but I was dubious because I did not see the white chin and cheeks of the clawless, but did not think further of it till later. I did manage to grab the little blighter, but it tried very hard to bite me, so I released it again and took a few photos before it managed to get itself into the thick bush between my house and the Kliprots river, escaping my clutches. I'm not too sure what I would have done if I had managed to hang on to it, but I did notice that the fur is even softer to the touch than it appears.

When I checked the photos, I saw one thing, in the photo above, that confirmed it was a Spotted-necked Otter, and that was the very visible claw on the pinky finger of the left front foot. Obviously, with a common name like they have, a Cape Clawless Otter does not have claws. this is because claws would get in the way of their fat finger tips as they probe the stream bottom, by feel, for the crabs that form the biggest part of their diet. Spotted-necked Otters, on the other hand, feed more on fish than crabs, and so, sharp claws are necessary to grip the slippery, slimy body of a fish.

Further north in Africa, where freshwater bodies are much more substantial than in South Africa, these otters survive almost entirely on fish around 100mm long and rarely more than 200mm, while in South Africa, where freshwater bodies are much smaller and freshwater fish less numerous, they are forced to supplement their diet with crabs and frogs, especially platannas, which they catch in the water.

Also, north of South Africa, where the freshwater fish are more numerous, Spotted-necked otters live in groups of up to twenty individuals whereas, here, they live singly or in tiny family groups of moms and her two, or maximum three, pups. They also hunt alone here, or if not, it will be a mother teaching her pups to hunt. So, if you see a group together in one of the weirs on the estate, it will more than likely be the more common Cape Clawless otter. 

Walking along the Kliprots after one of the recent thunderstorms, I almost stepped on a Distant's Thread Snake, Leptotyphlops distantii, a tiny snake that looks like a metallic earthworm.

These are typical snakes that differ from other snakes only by their diminished size, the fact that their toothless upper jaw is fused to the skull, so that only the bottom jaw moves (like us), and that their body scales are all the same size, whereas other snakes have larger belly scales.

Another difference, which it shares with all other blind and burrowing snakes, is that its eyes are set behind a scale similar to the rest, where most snakes' eyes are set beneath a transparent scale. So, Thread snakes can only differentiate between dark and light.

Thread snakes spend most of their time burrowing through loose soil or leaf litter in search of termite tunnels or paths containing the pheromone trails left by ants. Once located, the Thread snake follows the trail until it finds the colony. It will enter the colony and release a pheromone of its own that has a relaxing effect on the ants, so that they don't harm the snake while it quickly eats large quantities of eggs, grub-like larvae, and the soft immobile pupae, before making a quick retreat!

With termites the snake eats the eggs whole, but when eating the nymphs and adults, the thread snake sucks the insides out from the rear and discards the skin with the sclerotised head.

Very little seems to be known about the behaviour of the snake, otherwise. They are oviparous, meaning they lay eggs, but little else is known about how they find a mate, although it is surely the same as other snakes where the female releases a pheromone trail that the male picks up and follows. It is known, however, that the closely related Texas Thread snake lays up to twelve eggs and coils around them to protect them.

This is only the second Distant's Thread snake I have found on the estate, so it was a very exciting find!

While walking in the grasslands in Hidden Valley, a metallic glint caught my eye from quite far away. On closer inspection, I found this beautiful, jewel-like Furry Grassland Leaf Beetle, Macrocoma aureovillosa, feeding on the inflorescence of a Golden Velvet grass.

Leaf beetles belong to the Chrysomelidae family of beetles (see blogs of Christmas 2021 and May 2020), a massive family of well-over 35000 described species and about the same amount yet to be described! 

All leaf beetles are plant feeders, in their larval and adult stages. The female lays her clump of eggs on the underside of a leaf and covers them with her concrete-like faeces to protect them. Once hatched, they munch the leaves of the tree they are born on, very much like the caterpillar of a moth or butterfly (or Sawfly). 

Once fully developed, the larva drops off the tree and buries itself in the ground to pupate or, like the species in the article in my blog from Christmas 2021, hangs its pupa from the underside of a leaf. Then, out comes the adult beetle.

This is a striking beetle, but if you check my previous blogs on the family, you will see that they are very different, but all are striking.

A nice close-up of a Citrus Swallowtail butterfly, Papilio demodocus, slurping up the juices from a leopard scat. It is very difficult to get a photo of these butterflies because they almost never stay still for even a moment. Even when perched on the ground like this, they usually flutter their wings continually. This chap, however, was so intoxicated by this disgusting juice it was drinking that it never even shivered while it let me approach to within a few centimeters!

Butterflies eat mostly nectar from flowers but are attracted to the myriad minerals and salts available in liquid form in the excrement of carnivores and herbivores, and also the juices present in carcasses.

Male Swallowtails congregate where there is a concentration of flowers providing nectar, or a carcass or at fresh scats like this one, or on a hilltop and wait for a female to appear. As soon as she enters a male's field of vision, he quickly flies over to her and hovers over her, beating his wings quickly, to secure her from the rest of the males as he gently pushes her towards the nearest surface to land. If she is the incorrect species or she has already been mated with, she will either flee on his first advance, or land and begin to flutter her wings until the male gets the message and flies off.

If she is ready to mate, she will allow him to guide her to land and then let him mate with her, which is quite a prolonged affair and can take up to two hours. Afterwards they will go their own way until the female is ready to lay eggs, when she will begin to seek out the plant species that her larvae need to eat as they develop. After finding these by scent by landing on them and tapping them with her antennae, she will deposit a batch of eggs that will glue themselves the leaf or stem surface, then fly off.

We get another species of Swallowtail on the estate that can easily be confused with this one. It is called the Emperor Swallowtail, and it is South Africa's largest butterfly. The Emperor Swallowtail's markings and colouration are very similar to the Citrus Swallowtail, but the Emperor has long streamers on its wings which is where the genus gets its common name Swallowtail from, and it is larger. The Emperor also prefers forest while the Citrus associates more with grasslands and riparian bush. Their larvae, though, share the same plant and tree species which are mostly found in the forest, so the gravid female Citrus Swallowtail must at least venture there to lay her eggs.

My alien invasive plant eradication team recently brought this Leopard Tortoise, Stigmochelys pardalis, from the Spekboom river to show to me, knowing that I love this sort of thing. I was very excited because in the twelve odd years that I have been here on the estate, I have never encountered one. There was a time about three years ago when I saw a Speke's Hinged Tortoise on the entrance road, close to the railway line (see my blog of Christmas 2021), but that is within a drier bushveld biome.

Strange this, because, according to the literature, Leopard tortoises find themselves at their greatest concentration in the Eastern Cape's mesic grasslands, which are very similar, and share many similar species to our mesic grasslands. South Africa also happens to boast the richest tortoise diversity on the planet with fourteen species present of the forty species worldwide, although almost all of these occur in the Western and North-western Cape.

They make very good pets, as long as one has a permit to keep one, and that one is in it for the long run, because, in captivity, they often live to seventy-five years old and even older! I had one as a pet once when I lived in White River with my wife and child: 

One day I was returning from the Kruger Park in an official-looking vehicle, when I noticed I was being followed while driving in Nelspruit. When I stopped, a woman approached from the car with a large tortoise in her hands and asked me to release it into the park. She had bought it from some people on the side of the road and she was trying to do the right thing.

I took the tortoise from her but had no intention of releasing it into the park, because I believed it was too big. I have never seen such big ones in the park and I'm sure it is because, when the spaces for their legs get big enough, predators can get in there and kill the tortoise easier.

So, I took her home and she became my toddler daughter's favourite pet until it nipped her finger while she was feeding it! Anyway, I donated her to the Nelspruit Reptile Park where I received a lifetime pass for it. We reckoned she was between forty and fifty years old then, so she could still be there at seventy plus!

By counting the rings caused by spurts of growth on the shell plates, one can estimate the age of tortoises, and I guess that this one is between 18 and 22 years old. This one is also a male. This can be confirmed by turning the tortoise upside down and, if the plastron (dorsal part of the shell) is flat, it is a female, and if the plastron is concave, it is a male. This shape helps him to hug the female's shell while mating.

Like most other terrestrial reptiles, the female tortoise releases a trail of pheromones for potential males to follow. Often, more than one male responds, and this will inevitably lead to combat, where the males try to push the other away until the loser gives up or is tipped over, a potentially lethal situation if he cannot right himself afterwards. The victor then approaches the female and butts her around until she submits and allows him to mount her.

Once her eggs have developed, the gravid female will find a suitably sunny and well-drained spot with hard soil and urinate on it to make digging easier. She then digs a hole about a foot deep with her clawed and armoured front feet, turns around and lays twenty or so eggs into it. She then covers them up, stomps it down, and flattens it by lifting and dropping her plastron over the area.

Gestation takes about a year (9-15 months) depending on the weather, and females develop at higher temperatures while males develop at lower temperatures (interestingly, with crocodiles this is opposite, with males developing at higher temperatures and females at lower) so, if the majority of the gestation is over winter, more males will hatch, and the opposite for the summer.

When the eggs are ready to hatch, the hatchlings sometimes have to wait, because the ground may be too hard for them to dig out of, so they may have to wait for it to rain to soften the ground so that they can hatch and emerge as tiny little mini tortoises.

This is a photo that I featured in my blog of December 2019, but it was not about the wasp, it was about the little extrusions you see poking out from the wasp's abdomen. 

If you know these wasps, you will notice that the bright orange band that usually occurs around the first two segments of her abdomen from the waist, has faded to almost black and she has a strange protrusion from between her third and fourth abdominal segments and another just before the last one. 

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, wasps are mostly parasitic, and their activities make good script for horror movies, but it doesn't stop there. In this case the wasp has been stylopised, which means that she is a victim of a horrible parasite from the Xenidae, a family of insects quite closely related to the parasitic flies in the order Strepsiptera. 

The two protrusions from the abdomen of the wasp are either adult female stylopids who spend their entire adult lives protruding from the abdomen of their hosts, or male stylopid pupas, that once pupated, will emerge and fly off in search of a female. Or a combination of both. They do not kill the host but weaken it and make it sterile. 

When the female stylopid is receptive, she emits a scent pheromone that will hopefully be picked up by a male, which resembles a house fly slightly, but with branched antennae and clubbed forewings as opposed to a fly's clubbed hind wings. The male lives very briefly, less than six hours, so he may not dilly dally as he searches out these pheromones. 

Once he finds the female, he must mate with her through an opening on the anterior part extruding from the host, and then he will promptly die. Her young hatch within her, within the host, and eat their mother out from the inside! That's dedication on her side!

These first instar larvae have legs and scramble out of her anterior section and run around in search of new hosts. Once a host is found, the larvae attach themselves and secrete a compound that softens the host's cuticle so that the larva can burrow inside its host's abdomen where they will feed and grow and then pupate, Once the pupal stage is complete, the male flies off for his few hours of adult life and the female remains in her pupal shell for her entire life.

This is a Common Dotted Fruit Chafer, Oxythyrea marginalis, found on many of the brand-new flowers that came out in the early spring, especially in the burned areas. It belongs in the Scarab family, which has over thirty thousand species and about the same amount still to be described, but in the Cetoniinae subfamily of Chafers or Rose beetles.

They feed on nectar and pollen mainly but will subsidise this with tree sap and the juices from bruised and rotting fruit. On two of my recent hikes with guests, I found them committing floral larceny. Seriously, it is a proper botanical term, floral larceny! It refers to the action of an insect, bird or mammal that bypasses the floral parts of a flower in pursuit of the nectar, that is usually a reward for the pollinators for brushing past the floral parts of the flower. So, in other words, it takes the nectar but doesn't pollinate the flower. 

Usually, to do this, the thief has to bite a hole at the base of the perianth to access the nectar. In the case of this beetle, both times it had bitten through the base of the long, tubular perianth of the yellow Long-tube Fire Lily (what I used to know as Ifafa Lily), Cyrtanthus stenanthus ssp. major, a beautiful small Amaryllis that grows prolifically in our grasslands. This flower is much too narrow for the beetle to fit down the perianth, so it was forced to commit larceny. I read that these nectar thieves usually do this as the exception, not the norm.

Besides the larceny, the Common Spotted Fruit Chafer is an important pollinator for many of our flowers, especially our proteas and some of our orchids. Unfortunately, it is also a main pollinator of the Formosa Lily, Lilium formosanum, that beautiful huge trumpet lily that blooms on the estate in late summer. The reason I say unfortunately, is because those lilies are exotic and even slightly invasive, coming originally from Taiwan.

That's it for the spring of 2024. I was supposed to publish this at the end of November, but I had a few technical issues with the site which seem to now be solved (unless the font sizes and styles are all mixed up). The rainfall has remained scarce and sporadic into the first three weeks of December, but, as I write this, we have just enjoyed our first nice rains, soft soaking rains, just before Christmas. 

It looks like we will have lots of people here over Christmas, and, although rainfall has been so wrong, the estate is still lush and green, and if this lovely rain keeps it up, maybe the water levels will rise to suitable levels. Please remember that I am available to take people on promenades, walks, drives and hikes over the festive season (always, really). Simply contact me, Jimmy, on the radio or email (jimmy@finsbury.co.za) or, better yet, by WhatsApp (064 523 7058), and we will arrange an outing.

WINTER 2024

 WINTER 2024

That was winter, then. Very dry indeed! The rivers are critically low at the moment as everything waits in anticipation for the first rains of the season. All are struggling: When I walk through the grasslands almost every single rock has been overturned by baboons searching for arthropods because there is just no available nutritious vegetation that they can get their hands on; The warthogs too, although it is more normal in the winter, are rooting with their snouts because there is no above-ground vegetable nutrition available. Even usual evergreens like the ubiquitous Ouhout and the Dogwood Shiny Leaf seem to have had larger leaf die-off than usual for the dry season. The last rain we had was on the tenth of April, almost five months ago! And, as I mentioned in the previous edition, the first few months of the year were drier than usual too, because of our friend, El Nino!

And so, the total precipitation over the estate for the last rainy season, ending at the end of August, was: The lowest, 535mm, measured at Patrick's gate on the western edge of the estate; 743mm, measured at the hatchery by the office, in the center of the estate; the highest, 867mm, measured at Pebble Creek on the extreme northern side of the estate; 804mm, measured at Rock Solid on the eastern side of the estate; and another low figure of 697mm, measured at Rainbow Rivers down on the southern side of the estate; bringing the average rainfall figure, for Finsbury Estate, to 729mm, the third lowest figure for a season since we started measuring rainfall in 2010, and way below the mean average of 920mm per annum.

The opening photo above shows how dry and hazy it has been lately, with the summit of Mount Anderson in the distance. Winds have been howling and the threat of fire has been great. The photo was taken, by me, at the beginning of August when Nick Moore from Rock Solid and I decided to sleep over on top of Goudkoppies. The following day we hiked along the edge of the Goudkoppies flats and this is where we decided to stop off for a quick cup of tea.

I don't want to get my hopes up, but the long-range forecast suggests a wet spring and early summer which will certainly be welcome.

There were certainly very cold snaps, where it got down to minus three in the mornings, during the winter, but it was generally quite a mild one. One freezing morning, though, the labour team called me over to show me something they were very excited about. They were working on the little weir wall at the weir on the driveway to Rainbow Creek (unit 2), and they took me behind into the bush on the other side of the stream where a water pipe had a spraying leak. The resulting landscape was like something out of a fantasy movie! The photo doesn't do it justice, it was like an icy wonderland!

In the middle of May, I encountered the new male leopard that has been sighted on and around the estate in recent times. It was certainly one of the best leopard sightings I've had at Finsbury to date, with the large male walking right past my Landrover!

It's quite a story because I had my daughter and her beau visiting me from the United States during this time and we had just returned from our first visit to the Kruger Park where we managed to see good sightings of lion and an excellent cheetah sighting, which provided an exciting and satisfying first safari experience for the boyfriend. We didn't see leopard, though, and my daughter told her friend that there was always a chance we would see a leopard at Finsbury while they were staying here (I, of course, rolled my eyes, thinking: fat chance!)

BUT, when I saw this great sighting, I was returning from a shopping trip from town on my own, with daughter and company back at the central area in my house!

I bumped the large male leopard in Highland Run, just before the entrance gate to Finsbury near "The Crofts" (unit 19). Just after he strolled nonchalantly past my vehicle, I rushed home to collect my visitors but knowing that the chances of finding him again would be slim. Unbelievably, we managed to find him again, as he was marking his territory by spraying urine close to the cleared area in Highland Run, just below the cottage. What great luck!

He looks like a bit of a "roffie", because he has a very scarred face, meaning he is not shy to get into a fight with rivals. I featured this male in my SUMMERTIME! blog, posted on 9 February 2024, where I posted a picture of him, taken by one of our trophy cameras, at K24. This was the first sign of him in our area. I also posted a photo, taken by our neighbours, of him and our dominant male together, facing off! According to our neighbour, he was dominated by our big male, and so we thought it would be the last we see of him. It seems it is not to be. When we saw him in Highland Run, he was actively marking territory, a direct challenge to our current male.

It looks like we have had a changing-of-the-guard on the estate...

Talking of visitors, we had an interesting visitor to K9, only for two days, though, in the middle of winter. A Greylag Goose, Anser anser, the type species of goose in the world. Yes, this is the goose, found in England, Europe and Asia, that occurs in all the fables and nursery rhymes from our childhood! This is the wild ancestor to the domestic goose, domesticated in Europe between 2500 and 1360 BCE. 

Don called me on the radio one morning to say there was a large goose at K9, which he was struggling to identify. On approaching K9, the first thing I noticed was its large size. This immediately led me to think that it must be a Spur-winged goose, South Africa's largest goose. Later, Don sent me a message with a picture of a Greylag goose, which he had found on the internet. To be honest, I had never even heard of a Greylag goose before!

Anyway, I decided to try to approach the bird for a photograph, keeping in mind that a goose can be an aggressive animal if it chooses. I was surprised, though, that the goose allowed me to approach very closely, before threatening me, allowing me to get some nice photographs! This obviously means that it is used to the presence of humans, and it had just strayed from its normal home for a while.

These geese are herbivores that graze on grasses that grow underwater, like The Floating Clubrush, Isolepis fluitans, that one can see waving slowly below the surface in some of the weirs, or the Fennel-leaved Pondweed, Stuckenia pectinata, that likes to clog up the hatchery raceways. They also graze the grasses along the banks of the rivers. Once a mate is found, the pair will remain together until death do them part, which suggests that this was a single youngster, or an established adult that has lost his / her mate in some tragic event.

I have featured lichens in many of these publications in the past. Mainly because they are such a good example of mutual symbiosis, which is when two organisms work together for the benefit of both parties (compare to parasitism, where one species benefits while the other is negatively affected; or commensalism, where one species benefits while the other is unaffected), but also because they are beautiful, due to their often bright colours and bizarre growth forms. Jirre! It's just crazy how life pushes to the extreme just to exist!

In cross-section, the uppermost layer in most lichens, the part exposed to the elements, consists of tightly woven fungal hyphae (In normal fungi like mushrooms, the hyphae are the string-like strands that run through the soils, absorbing nutrients and moisture). This outer layer of hyphae is called the cortex. Beneath this tough protective layer of hyphae, or the cortex, is a layer of photobiont, usually consisting of algae, or sometimes a cyanobacterium, whose function it is to produce sugars through the process of photosynthesis. The following layer in cross section is a layer of more loosely woven fungal hyphae that offers structural support, and then, in foliose lichens particularly, there is a final layer that consists of rhizines, fungal hyphae designed to anchor the lichen body to the substrate, be it rock or bark of a tree. 

In addition to the two species already taking part in the deal, many lichens also incorporate a third species of organism: a yeast. The function of the yeast is to produce bitter-tasting chemicals which act as a defensive mechanism to ward off predators like lichen-grazing bagworms (see blog of February 2020) or Booklice from the Psocodea order of insects (see blog of Winter 2023).

The three major growth forms of lichens are FOLIOSE, which look like leafy scales that usually adorn the bark of trees but also occur on rocks. Then there are FRUTICOSE lichens that have branches hanging from them. The third major growth form is CRUSTOSE, which grow like a crust on rocks and sometimes tree bark. These three growth forms can be subdivided into many different sub-forms. The lichen pictured above, that looks like yellow spray paint, is one of the simplest types of CRUSTOSE lichens called Powdered Gold-dust lichen, Chrysothrix candelaris. This, the finest of the crustose lichens, is classified as a leprose crustose lichen. The growth form is so simple that it doesn't form the layers in cross-section as described above, but simply consists of an irregular blend of hyphae and randomly scattered photobiont cells, lacking a cortex and rhizines. It doesn't even produce apothecia, the disc-shaped structures that produce the reproductive spores of the fungal part of the organism. Instead, it is rubbed off mechanically by the feet of animals or it drifts in the wind to attach to another substrate, where it will take hold and continue growing.

The simple design of this lichen means that it cannot accommodate a yeast population for defense purposes. Instead, it produces its own bright yellow usnic acid which is believed repel predators with its bitter taste. It is also believed that usnic acid has sun block properties and protects the exposed lichen from harmful UV-B rays, but this species is often associated with shade, so the former suggestion makes more sense.

These are another two examples of crustose lichens, the bright orange Firedot lichen, Caloplaca cinnabarina (see blog of May 2019) and, below the tip of the pen, Crescent Map lichen, Rhizocarpon lecanorinum, both of which have a cortex and a layered construction. 

The bright, cinnamon colour of the Firedot lichen is a result of the presence of a chemical called parietin, which protects the lichen from harmful UV-B rays, like the usnic acid in the species described before this. Parietin also has other functions that are advantageous to the organism, like usnic acid in the previously described species: The chemical also has antibacterial and antifungal properties that protect the organism from bacterial and fungal attack

In the Crescent Map lichen, the little black patches are the apothecia, the disks that produce the reproductive spores of the fungal component of the organism. These lichens develop a "cracked mud" appearance during the dry season as they desiccate, which disappear when the lichen absorbs water again when the rains fall. Also being exposed to full sun all day, Crescent map lichen also requires a sun screen and this is supplied by the presence of rhizocarpic acid, which is synthesised by exposure to ultraviolet radiation. 

This beautiful lichen, called Flathair lichen, Teleschistes puber, is an example of a FRUITICOSE lichen. Not the best example because fruticose lichens usually grow in semi or full shade and are a greyish-greenish colour. This species has a bright colour and resides in more inhospitable environments. I photographed this lichen growing on a gnarled Spikethorn tree growing on a rocky outcrop up on the edge of Nosey Point up on Goudkoppies. The lichen is constantly exposed to extreme sun and high winds!

Once again, the bright colour of the lichen is caused by the presence of anthraquinones, which act as a sunscreen. The synthesis of this chemical allowed these fruticose lichens to colonise much more inhospitable habitats than in those habitats they commonly occurred in. The benefits of this chemical are well illustrated by the fact that they are used in the production of dyes and are responsible for their light-fastness!

And once again, the pretty orange disks are the apothecia that produce the fungal spores that will drift in the wind, or be splashed away by raindrops, hoping to come into contact with the appropriate algal element of the relationship to form a new lichen. 

Tree Lungwort, Lobaria pulmonaria, featured in my blog of January 2020, is a FOLIOSE lichen that grows in shaded areas on the bark of trees. This lichen is the result of a mutually symbiotic relationship between a fungus, an algae AND a cyanobacterium, forming a single organism that incorporates representatives of three different kingdoms of organisms!

This lichen is very sensitive to pollution and disruptions and its population has declined dramatically in the past few decades and is now considered endangered in many areas.

The species accommodates two types of photobiont, a blue-green algae and a green algae which supply carbohydrates to the organism, while a blue-green cyanobacteria fixes nitrogen in the atmosphere for the benefit of the organism. Very industrious indeed!

Tree Lungwort is, like most lichens, very long lived, and only produces apothecia after about twenty-five years of age! Before this, though, the lichen can reproduce vegetatively. During the dry season, when the thallus is completely desiccated, it can become very brittle and pieces can break off and travel to a different location by the wind. Once the rains return, these desiccated pieces of the lichen will rehydrate, anchor itself suitably, and continue to grow.

There is so much more in the world of lichens. I will endeavor to understand them better. It's hard, because they are extremely complex for my little brain to comprehend. But, wow, they are so prevalent on the estate, everywhere! 

Oh goody! Another great photograph supplied by Dave DeVos from "The Croft's" (unit 19). This time it is of a Plain-backed Pipit, Anthus leucophrys, I think, taken on the dry, rocky slopes along the concrete two-track between Patrick's gate and that unit.

I say "I think" because it's a tough one: The Plain-backed Pipit is almost indistinguishable from the Buffy Pipit, Anthus vaalensis, with which it often shares a habitat. They are even found amongst each other at popular sights! According to the various distribution maps that I consulted, there is more chance that this is the Plain-backed because the Buffy prefers it drier than here, and not as high up so, I'm not sure if their local distributions overlap in this particular area.

 The pinkish mandibular base, clearly visible in Dave's photo, however, is, according to descriptions, more characteristic of the Buffy (the Plain-backed has a more yellow mandibular base). But, when I check the photos at various sources, they both seem to have pinkish bases. Only in a few pictures did the Plain-backed have a yellow base. Phew! It kills me!

Anyway, when I walk in the rocky grasslands near this sighting, the sparrow-like call of the Plain-backed as the pair move from rock to rock is unmistakable. I know this because I had my tablet with me, like, a fortnight ago, and I played the call on my birding app while the real birds were calling, and it was identical. The call of the Buffy is similar, but very different if you compare them side by side.

Even their behaviour is similar. It is said that they both cock and wag their tales, but the Plain-backed does not cock the tail above the horizontal, whereas the Buffy does. Gee, lots of very slight differences to observe.

Additionally, Roberts' says that the Buffy is an uncommon resident and nomad, while it says the Plain-backed is a common resident and nomad. So, if Buffy do occur here, then I'm not sure about the species, but the Plain-backed definitely does occur here. I'll put my money on the Plain-backed Pipit.

You've got to be bad if the scientific name applied to your species spells it out bluntly! This is a soldier Common Fungus-growing termite, Odontotermes badius, and the "badius" does refer to the fact that they are bad. Bad for you if you have a wooden house, that's for sure. Whenever and wherever you are on the estate, if you see a layer of mud covering the bark on a tree, or a wooden stump on the floor, even covering a pile of herbivore droppings, you can be sure that, beneath that mud, are a portion of a colony of these termites eating the wood away. 

It's a little sad actually, because these insects do absolutely no harm to any living thing. They are also very important in the ecological system in any environment as soil aerators and nutrient recyclers. The problem comes in because we like to build things with dead wood, and dead wood is to these termites what sugar is to ants. They don't actually eat the wood, though, as it would not provide enough nutrition to keep the termites alive, so they have had to make a plan.

 So, the termites gather up and chew wood and other dead vegetation and bring it into a group of chambers strategically positioned within the nest so that they remain at a relatively constant temperature with a consistently high moisture content. They pile the vegetation on top of itself, using the chewed vegetation to cement it and their faeces to fertilise it, until it forms a shape that is not unlike a human brain. Because the conditions are so favourable, Termitomyces microcarpus fungus grows on the vegetation, consuming it. The termites, when they require high quality food to raise special castes like reproductives or secondary / tertiary queens, harvest the fungus and feed it to the relevant larvae. The definition of farming! 

Unlike the Macrotermes fungus-growing termites from the Kruger Park, with the huge mounds pointing into the sky, this genus' species' nests are deeper in the ground and do not have a mound. Sometimes there is a dome-shaped rise in the ground above a nest, but I have not noticed any in the estate to date. The only times I have managed to pin-point a nest is when I have found a colony of the correct species of mushrooms growing on a certain spot, and beneath that spot there is sure to be a termite colony's nest.

Most species of fungus that grow inside termite mounds produce long pseudorhizas that reach to the surface of the ground when they are ready to produce a fruiting body, but these tiny mushrooms don't need to because the Common Fungus-growing termite, around the middle of summer, when the time is right for the fungus, removes pieces of fungus from the garden and transports them outside of the nest and places them onto the ground where the fungi will produce fruiting bodies (mushrooms). It's almost like the termites have a conscious respect for the fungus. We certainly could learn a bit from them!

The mushrooms are not just edible for us, but much tastier than normal Denny's mushrooms too! And, although they are small, they are usually plentiful where they occur. I harvested a bunch of them and enjoyed the taste when they were raw so much, that I had finished them by the time I returned home so could not cook them to taste. (see my blog of Christmas 2021 to see a photograph of the mushrooms)

Even though it gets really cold in parts of South Africa, our snakes do not hibernate like those in the northern climes, so it is certainly not unusual to see a snake out and about on a sunny winter's day. This is a Rhombic Skaapsteker, Psammophylax rhombeatus, and I stumbled upon it on one of my hikes this last month. It did not want me to take a photo of it and tried to bite me a few times as I manipulated it for the intended photoshoot. You can see its mouth half open, hoping I would put my hand close enough!

If it had bitten me, it would not be a problem because, although they do have an elapid-like neurotoxic venom, it is very mild and would have very little effect on a large mammal like a human. Or a sheep for that matter! The misnomer "Skaapsteker" (translated to Sheep Biter) was applied to this snake erroneously as the culprit for the deaths of sheep a long time ago. The snake responsible was probably the Cape Cobra, a much more secretive, and dangerous snake.

Its venom, though, is very effective on its target prey, which includes small mammals, birds and reptiles. It is a daytime hunter and actively searches for, and pursues, its chosen prey. After a rapid chase, the snake bites the victim and then follows it as it is quickly overcome by the venom. Once it has succumbed, the snake swallows it whole, headfirst.

The gravid Rhombic Skaapsteker lays two dozen or more eggs under leaf litter, rocks, or other suitable cover, and returns to the sight to protect and incubate the eggs, often by shivering on top of the eggs to create a bit of heat, for at least a few weeks after laying. This sort of parental care is very rare in reptiles, particularly snakes. I have heard that African Rock pythons also incubate their eggs, but to a lesser degree.

They are quite big, reaching up to a meter long, but usually forty to sixty centimeters long, active in the day, and highly mobile, so are one of the more common snakes sighted on Finsbury estate. 

As I have mentioned before, I love it when I manage to get photos of both the caterpillar and the moth / butterfly of the same species onto my files. This is the caterpillar and adult moth of a Temnora pylades, with an odd English name of Gate Temnora. These moths belong to the Sphingidae or Hawkmoth Family and, like many family members, are important night time pollinators of many plants that have white flowers that are open at night, like our Wild Jasminum species, Evening Primroses and others.

The caterpillars are characteristically smooth with a short, upright horn at the end of the body, and although they are quite well camouflaged, they also pull their heads into an inflated body and display eyespots by the tail that surely can give a potential predator a scare.

The female, when ready, searches out and finds a plant with the awkward name of Anthospermum welwitschii (no common name), on which she lays a large batch of eggs. After hatching, the caterpillars eat exclusively from this plant in the Coffee family until it is ready to spin a cocoon and pupate.

Well, this was quite a fun experience for me. A while back, I can't even remember when, I was leading a hike below the east-facing cliffs of Goudkoppies near Nosey point, when I noted a Mount Anderson Everlasting shrub growing in an inaccessible portion of the cliff. I promptly forgot about this and carried on with life. Why I was so blase is still not completely clear to me, because it was actually quite a significant find: The Mount Anderson Everlasting, Helichrysum summo-montanum, is a near endemic, meaning it only occurs in a small area, in this case a few hundred hectares, on the entire planet! 

I have blogged about this plant before (blog of August 2020), and Louise Twiggs, our treasured Finsbury artist, has even painted the only individual that was near our boundary in water colour. The painting is on display on the wall of the office. Unfortunately, the devastating twenty-eighteen fire destroyed this specimen.

This discovery, though, is even more important because it consists of a colony of, at least, nine individuals slap-bang in the middle of Finsbury Estate property! A newly discovered colony - outside of the established distribution circle, which is along the watershed between our valleys and the Sabie valley (I did hear, though, that one of the MTPA botanists did see one of these individuals a few years ago during a bioblitz from Mount Anderson Ranch - but it was not mapped)

Anyway, when I was hiking along the watershed this winter and saw some of these magnificent plants in full bloom, I suddenly remembered about the vague sighting of the plant that I had on that hike along the base of the Goudkoppies cliffs and made it my mission to relocate it and, hopefully, photograph it while it was in bloom. I did a hike with some fine folks from Finsbury House and scoured the incorrect portion of the cliffs. I then went on my own, one day, and found the elusive plant together with a bunch of smaller specimens. They were in full bloom!

The problem now, was to get a close-up photograph of the magnificent flowers. Problem? Why? Because they were attached to a bush anchored to a sheer cliff dangerously high. I attempted to climb from the bottom and got to a point where, on looking down, I began to tremble and doubt my sanity. I then tried to get a visual from the top and, very quickly, ran out of nerves as I approached the cliff edge!

When Nick Moore and I went camping up on Goudkoppies recently (refer to the opening photograph), the reason I chose the spot we stayed at, was because I wanted to see if, together, Nick and I would be able to get a photograph of this plant. Alas, Nick also thought it would be very silly to try and approach the bush for a photo - too dangerous! What to do?

I finally arrived at a solution and managed to borrow Charles Stewart's (unit 16 Jackpot Cottage) drone. Good stuff! so I took the drone up with me the following week and, believably, I forgot to bring along the cord that connects the controller to the cellphone! So I could fly the drone, but not see what I was photographing. I tried anyway but failed dismally.

The following two days were extremely windy and not suitable for piloting a drone. Finally, the day arrived, and I went out there early in the morning when the wind was at its slowest in a long time. I sent the drone up and immediately attracted the attention of a murder of about a dozen crows! They were very interested in the drone, and I got a pretty good video of them circling it while flying. Fortunately, they didn't attack the drone and I managed to get some pretty good images of the shrub with its flowers wide open, as above!

Beautiful! And the scientific name too. It translates to: GOLDEN SUN ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP.

It looks like winter is finally coming to an end, although there is still frost on the floor some morning, even though September has arrived. Everything is waiting for the rains to arrive. Life is ready to explode on the estate and I'm ready for it! Can't wait to see you all.