Small animals

SOME SMALL ANIMALS

I've been seeing some pretty nice small animals around lately, too. Check some of them out:

The second or third spring rains are always accompanied by swarms of winged termite alates, Termitidae: Isoptera. Potential future queens and kings. Of course, only a fraction of them will ever establish a new termite colony because the rest become a super energy-packed treat for anything that is not entirely vegetarian. Here, the workers emerge from their subterranean refuge for a rare glimpse of daylight in a frenzied carnival as they protect the carefully groomed royalty, emerging en masse, to take to the skies.  

I think it was in March I posted a photo of an adult antlion, from the family Myrmeleontidae. Looked similar to a droopy dragonfly. Anyway, this is the larvae (pity I cut off the tips of the mandibles!). This is the creature that sits just beneath the sand at the base of those perfectly cone-shaped pits you see in soft sand. See the patches of bristly hairs along it's body, well those pick up the slightest movement of sand as an unsuspecting victim, like an ant, slips into the pit. The antlion then immediately begins tossing it's head backwards to throw sand up at the victim to help bring it down towards those formidable jaws. Tickets! Star Wars: Return of the Jedi got the idea of those desert pits from these guys.  

Monkey Beetles, from the tribe Hopliini of the Scarabeidae, are very important pollinators of plants, so it stands to reason that South Africa, especially the Cape, is a hot-spot with more than 65% of all species on the planet! Monkey beetles, as you can see, are very hairy beetles that feed on pollen. But the flowers on which the pollen is found is also the social centre of the beetle. Males meet females on the flowers. The beetles mate on the flowers. Once the male has mated with the female, he guards her while she enjoys her meal of pollen, and it is not unusual to see a male standing over his mate and fighting off a rival male. All of this social activity is bound to get a lot of pollen trapped on all those hairs, to be transported to the next flower. Pollination.

Now, this is quite exciting for me. It is definitely a Coppet butterfly, Aloeides sp. (by the underwing pattern) but I didn't get a good look at the upper wings. I think, though, that it is a Cloud Copper, an endemic found in rocky spots in our grasslands. I followed this on as it walked along the ground for some time. The literature says that it is a female searching for the pheromone trails of ants, on to the larval food plant, on which she will lay her eggs. The ants then tend and protect the larvae until they pupate.

Ha ha! I got this guy coming out of a hole he originally fled into. A Spotted Skaapsteker, Psammophylax rhombeatus, is one of the more common snakes encountered at Finsbury. It actively hunts and chases down rodents, frogs and lizards which it subdues after injecting a neurotoxic venom. It is completely harmless to sheep, though (Skaapsteeker means Sheep-poker)! After laying her eggs in a suitable hole or under thick leaf litter, the female incubates and protects her eggs before they hatch.  

And lastly, today I stumbled across a millipede, Diplopoda, a detrivore and herbivore, grazing lichen, just like a cow! He must be a fungi! Har Har!

So get down here, already, and explore. We look forward to seeing you!

SPRINGTIME

Springtime is coming to an end after a devastating fire and only 119mm of rain falling. The great advantage of the rainfall is that it has been soft and at regular intervals. This has maximised absorption and reduced runoff, allowing new growth to establish and thus reducing sheet erosion when the big rains do come.

The photo above is of South Valley, taken from the east at high altitude with Goudkoppies flats in the distance. Regenerating nicely. And with the new grasses comes the animals! We've had a breeding herd of Kudu hanging around the Central area for a few weeks now and it is not uncommon to see five or six Mammal species on a drive up the Kliprots (Nowhere for them to hide right now.).

Lewellen and James, guests at Morrin Pools, enjoy a close encounter with more than 100 Eland, Including more than 30 calves.

We've also been graced by a breeding herd of Eland enjoying the fresh new grasses sprouting. A herd of one hundred plus! (From a ecological point of view, another pro of the fire was it's expanse. At least 2000 hectares of our property. The grasers will not be concentrated when enjoying these new grasses so reducing the stress in small areas.) I encountered them up on the Rock Kestrel Trail on many occasions and then, more recently, up on the slopes just below Goudkoppies towards the Miner's Cottage. Animals galore!

Springtime also marks the arrival of many migratory birds. Some from afar, like the Steppe Buzzard, all the way from the Russian Steppes, 13 000 odd kilometers away. Others from nearby, just moving away from us to lower altitudes in our cold winters and rejoining us at springtime, like the Amethyst Sunbird or the, of what I've heard, elusive Bush Blackcap.

Bush Blackcap, Lioptilus nigricapillus, in the thickets near Solitude.

 Previously, I had only had sightings of the Blackcap in the Afromontane forests near the Steenkamps waterfalls and once at S12. This season, though, I have seen one at unit 5, unit 1, and Bushpig Alley, twixt unit 24 and 25. I've actually got to know the call so well that I even identified it at the Agri Show in Nelspruit a week or so ago!

The flowers are also beginning to abound. The Blue Squills, Graderias, Gnidias, Minature Hyacinths and many others have already bloomed but the big stuff is on the way. Expect a bumper flower season this summer after the fire! Some less noticeable flowers, because of their size and lack of sepals and petals, are the grasses. The grasslands are a wonderland right now, check these grass flowers out:

Blackseed Grass, Alloteropsis semialata ssp. ecklonii. The white feathery things are the Stigmas (female flowers) and the yellow things are the Anthers (male flowers)

Brachiara serrata, with male and female flowers.

Heteropogon contortis, with both flowers.

The last few weeks have seen twenty new species of plant been added to our Finsbury plant list, bringing the total dangerously close to the 600 mark. Below is just two of them:

A new suffrutex, Lannea edulis Wild Grape, growing on the now exposed banks east of K9. A suffrutex is an underground tree that has evolved to withstand regular natural grassveld fires by growing underground. Only the tips of their branches stick out! This brings the number of suffrutices in the estate, that I have found, to four. The specific name refers to the fruits edibility but I found that there is little flesh and the skins are terrible. the little fruit there is, though, is sour but invigorating!

Well, how funky is this! A Holothrix scopularia orchid growing on the summit of Mount Anderson last week. This strange specimen brings the total orchids I have found on the estate to 40! Groovin'

I expect Finsbury to be a haven of flowers over summer so I will organise many flower walks over the festive season. We will even arrange a trip where we drive around to Emoyeni via the Long Tom Pass so that we can access the summit area of Mount Anderson without the normally required 4 kilometers of  uphill hiking.

THE MOUNTAINS ARE A CALLING, FOLKS! LET'S GIT IT ON.

AUGUST 2018

AUGUST 2018

A beautiful predawn sky over Finsbury on the 5th August 2018. Very peaceful. The next day, the fire hit!

Well well, finally I get to post my blog for August. I have had such problems with my laptop and connectivity and, well, anything to do with computers. Anyway, better late than never...

August was a very busy month for the Estate and anybody who visited during this time will have noticed all the construction activity on the roads and weirs. I will leave the details of this activity for the quarterly news letter.

But what even overshadowed this activity was the runaway bush fire that we experienced. This is the story:

I was approaching a huge excavator machine from behind on my motorcycle on the road to the Miner's Cottage. I was to make sure the operator didn't miss the correct turning on this high altitude road. The operator saw me and began turning the behemoth so that I could pass. At the moment the tracks locked on the right side of the machine, I saw a small fire ignite between the tracks, caused by a spark between the steel of the tracks and a rock on the road. I immediately alighted from my bike and began to try to snuff the fire with my shoes and a small Protea branch plucked from a nearby tree. Within moments, Joseph, a labourer from Highland run, was at my side fighting the fire with his jacket. Even though the operator of the excavator joined in the fight with a fire extinguisher that was on board his machine, with the wind howling up there like it was, the fire pulled away from us in the opposite direction to the firebreak that was just behind us, egad!

With the wind howling like a banshee, the fire spread beyond the backburn point before we could even get there with the fire team. This was the beginning of the battle that would last for two days...

Part of the fire fighting team trying to reach the fire just below Goudkoppies.

 

Even though the sense of community involvement was strong, with all our neighbours responding with their fire teams and even a Working on Fire team from Graskop responding, the wind was just too strong and the fuel load too large! Numerous attempts at back-burning failed and the fire spread alarmingly fast. 

With the house keepers and other fire fighters stationed at each house, we managed to avoid any loss of property to the flames, although the fire only reached the houses in the Steenkamp's Valley at 04h00 the following morning!

The fire approaching the Whiskey River at 03h00 on the 7th August.

A view of the fire from Rock Solid in the Steenkamp's Valley at four in the morning. We had to use hosepipes and beaters to keep the fire away!

Environmentally, this was not a good time to burn a management fire and there was also a lot of fuel creating a very hot fire. But all is not gloom and doom. Below, I will highlight some of the Pros and Cons of an out of season fire like this:

PROS:

- A hot fire like this is devastating to trees. Most of the trees killed by the fire were Pine trees. Also, I prefer to ring-bark large Pine trees instead of felling them. This protects the grass beneath the Pines from being smothered by the acidic needles and the tree itself as it lies on the floor. The disadvantage of this method, though, is that it stimulates the tree to produce more cones (hence seeds) as it is dying. This, of course, results in many more seeds in the system and therefore many new seedlings begin to sprout around these areas. I have been using casual staff on Wednesdays to remove these seedlings, a labour-intensive task. Well, this fire annihilated all of these Pine saplings in the areas it burned (which was about two thirds of the Estate!)

-The fuel load was so high in many large areas of the Estate due to lack of burning in the last eight years. This not only increases the fuel load (moribund material) but also allows the encroachment and then invasion of indigenous woody shrubs (like Helichrysum wilmsii and H. kraussii) into the grasslands which ultimately reduce the vigour of the grass plants and allow the woody shrubs to replace the grasses. These woody encroachers require a relatively hot fire to kill them and that is exactly what this was. I was planning on burning all of these blocks over the next two years for exactly this reason before switching to the new, accepted method of a cool, mosaic burning regime which I can now start immediately from next season. With this regime, we will never have such a build up of moribund (fuel) again, which will prevent runaway fires like this from happening again.

Tranquility reigns in the aftermath as clouds pour over the watershed into the valleys with Mount Anderson center right  in the background.

CONS:

- There was little moisture content in the soil when the fire occurred and this puts stress on the storage organs of the grass plant. Especially when rains remain elusive for a prolonged period after the burn as is the case here. Fortunately we did have 21mm of rain soon after the fire which alleviated this problem somewhat. But rains are necessary, the sooner the better.

- With reduced growth due to lack of rain following a fire, the soil layer is left uninsulated and experiences hot temperatures in the day and cold temperatures at night. This also puts a certain amount of stress on the grass plant.

- When we burn management fires, we first wait for at least 30mm of rain before burning. This helps with the problem mentioned above but it also moistens the long grasses and bushes that make up the forest fringes surrounding the Afro-montane forests in the gorges of the grasslands. These forest fringes insulate the forest and allow a moister environment to develop in the forests which are necessary for the forest ecosystems to function. This fire was so hot and dry that it broke through many of these fringes and actually ignited the forest floors and burned into the forests, beneath the substrate, killing the trees as their roots were roasted! I spent 7 days after the fire trying to extinguish these fires. A truly demanding task!

The patch of unburned grass in the photo is what is left of the 50 meter wide firebreak running from Mount Anderson's summit towards Unit 5. The fire didn't even slow down for this break!

 

Many days after the fire I noticed termite mounds still smoking. On investigation I found that the soil in the mounds was actually burning. Termites mix soil, vegetable material and saliva together to construct the mound. These Nasute Termites have periphery mounds so I do not think this phenomenon harmed the colony.

The remains of new growth Pine which has been completely destroyed by the flames. This is one of the big positives of such a hot fire.

All the debris on the floor of the Pine plantation above Unit 1 that was damaged by the hurricane some years back was removed by the hot fire. All that remains are the holes that were caused by the felled trees.

Forest floor fire burning beneath the ground as it spreads and kills all the forest trees whose roots it encounters.

Thomas from Kwa Puleng logs some very difficult community service hours carrying 20 liters of water up the steep slopes to help extinguish the forest floor fires in the forests near the Miner's cottage..

Helen from Rock Solid doing the same. The photo does not justify the steepness of these slopes. This was extremely testing work from these youngsters and their help is very much appreciated.

Besides the fire and the construction work, we also had the usual holidays in August where we get many families visiting. This is the time of the year that the Moore's from unit 22 and I traditionally enjoy a camping excursion. We camped up near Little Joker Koppie because it was one of the few places that did not burn. It turned out to be a lovely area to camp. Below, find a gallery of this and a few new flower species I stumbled upon. Have a great month!

Our camp was situated at the edge of a small escarpment overlooking the Steenkamp's Valley. Here we relax in the shade of some Silver Sugar Bush trees at siesta time.

Our high altitude camp site.

We were up to watch the sun rise over Mount Formosa. Mount Anderson is ton the left.

The spectacular flowers of a Balloon Pod, Lessertia frutescens, flowering between M3 and Morrin Pools

The final flowering specimens of the winter flowering Crassula compacta, found blooming near our camp in the high altitude grasslands of Emoyeni.

JUNE & JULY 2018

JUNE & JULY 2018

Winter has been rather mild for us here at the Estate, with the temperature rarely dropping below the zero mark, with the coldest around -2C only within the last two weeks of July. As usual, the winter season is filled with the burning of firebreaks and the roll out of projects suitable for the low water levels, and of course, continuing the fight against alien plants!

Highlights for me included a sighting of a young mother leopard with a small cub around 4 months old in the middle of June, and a sighting of a Martial Eagle being harassed by a Jackal Buzzard above Rock Solid at the beginning of July.

Below is a gallery of a few things of interest and some of the activities we undertook in the coldest time of the year:

Smoke rises up the cliff face just below the summit of Spioenkop as we begin to burn the firebreak from there to unit 19. Firebreaks went off without a hitch this year.

A splendid specimen of Kalanchoe thyrsiflora residing above Olinia Gorge on the Rock Kestrel trail. Although a popular nursery subject, they can't seem to produce more beautiful specimens than those in the wild.

This winter has been rather mild for us here on the Estate. So much so that I stumbled upon three different sightings of snake during the middle of June! This one is a Montane Grass Snake or Cross-marked Grass Snake, Psammophis crucifer. Grass Snakes are very swift day active snakes that, using their speed, chase down their favourite prey, which are mostly lizards and skinks

Enjoying a hike with the Cotterrels from Unit 17. The Estate was busy over the mid-term break this year with 16 houses occupied during the week. 

Went for a walk to the Majubane Waterfall with the Cotterells and the Howards, from Buldozer Creek, in the last week of June. Sheesh, that plunge pool is even freezing during the Summer! The crazy swimmers were in there for more than a half an hour.

Louise and Kenna Twiggs on the miner's path that runs from the Hillside village, along and above the Spekboom river, to our boundary with Highland Run. We often do adventure hikes together and this time we climbed the rank gorge opposite "The Croft's" up to the Mine Walk and then returned down the Spioenkop road.

Even though I say that the winter has been mild, -2C is still VERY VERY cold for us South Africans. This is a picture of M2 just after 07h00 this past week. The frost looks like snow!

This photo was taken just after 07h30 also during the past week. As I was crossing the Kliprots river from the Kliprots road into South Valley, I noticed how these stalactite-like icicles formed as the water splashed over the rocks and wet the bottom of the River Rice Bush, Cliffortia linearifolia. Brrrrr! 

Not a long way to go before Springtime is here again. Hopefully the same applies to you. See you then...

MAY 2018

MAY 2018

I was not at the estate for the majority of May but two exciting things happened. Firstly, The Moores from Rock Solid visited and while Nick and Scarlett were walking near S7, they had an exciting experience viewing the aerial abilities of African Fish Eagles. Nick says that two of the three eagles present were constantly engaging each other in the air, sometimes interlocking talons and spinning towards the ground and releasing just before impact!

Two African Fish Eagles about to interlock talons above S7

Now, I would have immediately thought that this was a mating display because the eagles are clearly different sizes, with the male being 10-15% smaller than the female. Upon further research, though, it appears that the female is an aggressive defender of her and her mates' territory. If an intruder of any sex flies into the airspace of the pairs' territory, the female will immediately approach the intruder and fly him or her out of the area. If they do not cooperate, then the female will begin to fight. Fights are so severe that there are records of the interlocked fighters not releasing each other in time and both perishing on impact as they hit the ground! Nick and Scarlett were fortunate enough to witness this aggressive encounter for more than forty minutes, all around them. Excellent luck!

Next, and of course this would happen when I am not on the estate: In the late evening of 29 May, a driver on the Long Tom Pass road sighted a male lion about 10km short of the Nelspruit turn off. They snapped a photo of the lion and reported it to Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks. The dept responded but were unable to find the big cat the following day.

An adult male lion spotted on the Long Tom Pass road, close to the Nelspruit junction.

Then, at 03h00 on the morning of the 2nd June, a motorist got a sighting of the cat in Potato Seed Production's property just opposite Hops Hollow Brewery, on the route we walk when hiking to the brewery from Finsbury. The police were called and they found the lion on the carcass of one of PSP's cows alongside Emoyeni. The MTPA arrived and darted the cat and it ran into the thickets. After employing PSP's hounds, they managed to find it in the brush alongside the road.

The lion after it was darted. That's a big boy!

They loaded the lion and he has been taken to a rehabilitation centre near Malelane where his future will be decided. I immediately rushed to all our camera traps, hoping to have caught him on camera but, alas, there were none. It is very exciting to know that we had a lion so close to the estate! 

Have a jolly month. We look forward to your visit!!!

April 2018

APRIL 2018

At the trig beacon on the summit of Mount Anderson at sunset and moon rise. Photo by Sue Harwood

April was a cool, wet month where we received 137mm rainfall! Fortunately the weekends' weather was pleasant enough because it was a busy month with many members and their families visiting. The highlights were the discovery of two leopard kills in two days, and a very successful FULL MOON HIKE! Below, browse through a gallery illustrating these highlights:

While Grant Mackenzie and his friend were cycling towards Haartebeesvlakte early one Saturday morning, they interrupted a mother leopard with two full grown youngsters enjoying a zebra meal. I also stumbled upon the carcass, with my visitors, just an hour or two later but, alas, did not get a sighting of the leopards. 

When I first saw the carcass, I assumed that it was a road kill even though that would be unlikely high up there on the Komatiland Forest road. Then, as we approached, I could see that the carcass had been scavenged (I didn't yet know that Grant had seen leopards there a little earlier). On closer inspection, though, it was clear, by the teeth marks, that the zebra was actually brought down by the mother leopard herself. What a feat! Zebras are not only very big and strong, they also put up more of a fight than the average antelope. James Mackenzie, Grant's son, came up a little later and placed two Camera Traps at the scene but got no images of the leopards. This indicates that the leopards in question are extremely nervous of humans and did not return to the kill after being bothered by them.

The very next day, my group and I decided to hike the Rock Kestrel trail. My friend and his dog, leading the group, got a brief sighting of a little cub leopard. As we topped the rise, we found the carcass of a young eland stashed under a Currant tree. This is exciting because, only a fortnight prior to this, I stumbled upon a Reedbuck kill only 400 meters away on the same path. I got a great view of the mother leopard as she lay on a ledge 70 meters away, watching me. I also got a brief view of her cub that day. This means she is using the trail as her hunting ground, ambushing prey that commute on it!

After swapping stories with the Mackenzies, James decided to fetch his cameras on the zebra kill and bring them to the eland kill. While approaching the sight, him and his dad got a view of the cub lying by the carcass! The leopards returned in the early evening and devoured the entire carcass in that one night! The images James Mackenzie has provided here were taken the following morning after the leopards had bumped the cameras and moved them. What a beauty!

The blurring of the images are a result of the copious amounts of dew that was deposited the previous night.

Here the mother leopard lies against the pole supporting the camera while she prepares to suckle the cub. This, and the fact that the cub ate very little of the carcass, suggests the cub is less than 3 months old.

Don and his guests, The Slettevoldt's from Pebble Creek, The Harwoods from Bulldozer Creek and I enjoyed a hike with a twist this last long weekend. We started on the Rock Kestrel trail at 15h00 and after getting up there we left the trail and summited Mount Anderson at 17h30, just in time to enjoy a sundowner as the moon rose. Here's the group on the summit at sundown. Photo by Sue Harwood

We began our decent only after the sun had set. The moon had just risen over the summit. The trig beacon can still be seen behind the group.... We did not descend back down to South Valley but rejoined the Rock Kestrel trail and hiked it's full length and arrived back at the office area by 21h00.

We used a spotlight to view game on the return hike. We spotted this Jameson's Red Rock Rabbit which we managed to approach. We also saw Mountain Reedbuck, Grey Rhebok, Eland and a Fiery-necked Nightjar.  

So the hike was a six hour, 12 kilometer hike, half in the day time and the other half in the moon light. Yes, it was great and we will definitely offer them again on future full moons!

That's it for now. We hope to see you all here soon.