THE RAINY SEASON IS HERE
Hard to believe that it is October already. But it is, and that means the rainy season has arrived. We have had almost 50mm so far and life is beginning to happen. I have been doing a lot of high altitude work lately and have been chased down once or twice by lightning cracking through the air. I have also seen some beautiful vistas, as you would expect, and flowers beginning to bloom. Here is a little gallery of some of those things I managed to photograph:
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| A spectacular view of the estate from the tippy top of the Razorback road |
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| Gary and Sue Harwood from Bulldozer Creek standing beside the single boulder pothole by the high altitude waterfall above Trout Kloof. |
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| Me holding the skull of a long dead White-tailed Gnu (Black Wildebeest) high up on the plains of Goudkoppie |
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An up close of a Coertse's Hillside Brown butterfly resting on a lichen covered boulder
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| The flowers of the succulent, Crassula pelucida, hugging the rockface |
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| Mount Anderson, our majestic landmark, viewed from the North |
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| A new species of Heath for my list. I found these bushes above 2000m on a rock face that becomes a waterfall during the rains |
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| A Breyer's Lon-tailed Seps. This (almost) legless lizard is quite common here in the grasslands. With only small forelegs and no rear legs this lizard swims through the grasses |
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| A Natal Crocus, Apodilirion buchananii, from the Amaryllis family |
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| Gerbera piloselloides |
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| South valley, from the East |
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A grass Aloe, Aloe chortorliriodes. These beautiful Aloes decorate the high altitude cliffs throughout the estate. But you have to climb high to see them!
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| The remains of a Protea on top of the world. We call this sort of tree a Posthumus arborescens |
As you can see, it is time to get out into the grasslands here in the mountains. With over 500 species of plant, 46 species of mammal, 174 birds, 19 reptiles, 13 frogs all so far recorded right here on the estate, there is plenty of life to observe....
