MARCH 2018
The month of March was a rather busy one for me and my team. It is the end of the growing season which means there is a ton of new alien plant growth to contend with. The very dry spring we have had this year has resulted in the trees producing many more seeds than a wet spring would have them produce (remember this when you want your garden trees to flower more abundantly: give them less water during the growing time.). This is now the fourth year of dry springs in a row and I can see it when I see all the new Pine growth all over the Estate. The rains have certainly been coming later in the season in the last few years with us receiving 112mm in the month of March.
Anyway, this means that I have been busy up in the mountains a lot lately, which has exposed me to many exciting things: Lots of game and other goodies! To add to this, Easter was in March this year as well, so a lot of exciting activities took place too. Following, see a gallery of some of the things I managed to photograph:
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| An Ascalaphid Ant Lion, in the Proctarrelabis genus. The transparent, wavy wings and the hairy face of this Ant Lion adult make it appear like an apparition. The larvae of most Ant Lions are well known because they construct little pits in soft sand into which insect get trapped. The larvae, which hides under the sand at the bottom of the pit. throw sand, with their heads, at the insect as it tries to scramble up the loose sand on the sides of the pit. This helps the victim slide down to the bottom of the pit where the larvae grab s it with it's massive jaws and pulls it under the sand to devour it! This species, however, has a larvae that is free roaming and pounces on its victims just like a lion pouncing on it's prey. These insect are from the Neuroptera order, the same order as the Lacewings, the insects we mimic with the flies attached to our lines when fly fishing. |
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This is a wingless female Toad Grasshopper from the Pamphagidae family. These vegetarians rely on their superb camouflage to escape detection by predators. The males are smaller and winged and stridulate to attract a mate. The female, upon hearing the male's call, approaches him to mate, just like frogs do. Note the membrane on the side of her body that she uses to hear the male. The common name of Toad grasshopper does not refer to the fact that their mating system is similar but from the fact that some females from the family resemble toads with their fat, squat bodies.
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Unlike the above species of Grasshopper, the Koppie Foam Grasshopper, Dictyophorus spumans, does not attempt to hide from it's predators. In fact, it is aposematic which means it is brightly coloured, indicating that it is not a tasty meal! This grasshopper feeds on the leaves of Milkweed plants, very poisonous plants from the Apocynaceae family. Once the leaves are consumed, the poisonous cardiac-glycosides from the plant are stored in the body of the grasshopper and if it is molested, the poison oozes like a foam from its' thorax (Note the yellow foam in the photo). The poison is potent and is known to kill dogs when eaten!
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A beautiful Small Crab Spider, in shades of pink, prepares to blend with the Wild Scabious flower on which it is perched. The spider, from the Thomisidae family, has the ability to slowly change colour to the same shade as it's environment like a Chameleon! Once the spider is white like the flower, it disappears on it and waits for an unsuspecting pollinator to arrive on the flower, then, in a lightning flash, it grabs its prey and sucks it dry...
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This is certainly a more benign creature but no less interesting! What you see is the mobile home of a Bagworm, from the Psichidae family, attached to her food plant, a maroon phase White Stonecrop, Crassula virgata. The male bagworm is a typical flying moth with no mouthparts and a very short life-span in which to find a female and nothing else. The female is much longer lived and never leaves the bag that she constructs with silk and hardware that she collects from her surroundings. Once the male finds her, he manages to insert his long, extensible abdomen into the bag and fertilizes her, after which he promptly dies. The female continues eating while she lays up to 1500 eggs inside her bag until her body shrivels up and dies. The bag, attached to some substrate, protects the eggs till they hatch the following spring to allow the young to repeat the process.
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A close up of a Fresh Water Crab, Potamonautidae, preparing to defend herself and her eggs which you can see are held closely to her body by her folded tail. The young arthropods complete all their larval stages within their eggs while kept safely beneath their mother and then the minute, fully formed young emerge and disperse.
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A very young, and foolish, little Helmeted Guineafowl got left behind and confused when scattering from me although I did see it regain its family after I released it. This family consisted of a single male and female and their offspring. Very established flocks often lay communally in one nest with the most dominant female's eggs in the middle, giving rise to many more little chicks scurrying around!
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Gee, this Fiery-necked Nightjar sure let me get close! You can clearly see the stiff bristle-like whiskers behind the small bill with a massive gape. It uses these bristles to feel insects, while in flight, so that it can snap its astonishingly wide mouth closed. The beautiful nocturnal call of this bird is a sound that is hard to forget and we often, in season hear them around the central area by the office. This one was near S4 on the Steenkamps.
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Sue Harwood from Bulldozer Creek with a bunch of friends enjoying an amphitheater hike around the eastern edge of South Valley on a cloudy Sunday. We also visited a view point over the Haartebeesvlakte on the hike bringing it to about 13km in total.
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| We also enjoyed a traditional hike to the Brewery over the Easter weekend with a total of nine folks. We had all four seasons that day and just missed 26mm of rain which we could see falling over the office area as we were approaching the last leg of the hike. You know, the part when you can see the roof of the Brewery about 2km away and everybody's pace picks up for the last minute sprint.... |
