CHRISTMAS 2021

 CHRISTMAS 2021

At the end of October, the rainfall for the month was lower than the ten year average but I described it as good, soft, absorbing rain which was good for the vegetation as it allowed seeds to germinate and protect the soil from erosion. Well, since the end of October we have had an average of 245mm rain fall in 21 rainy days. This is quite a bit lower than the ten year average of 322mm over November and December combined. But the rain that fell was still soft and absorbing, resulting in the aquifers filling up sufficiently to rise the river levels nicely in time for Christmas. The estate is green and lush as you can see from the photo above, taken from atop Goudkoppies towards Mount Anderson. The lush grasslands are pumping with life and below are a bunch of interesting and exciting things that I stumbled upon during the last two months:

A close-up of a Raucous Toad, Amietophrynus rangerii, trying to conceal himself amongst the grass and debris in open grassland far away from large bodies of water. The rough, warty skin combine with cryptic coloration to provide decent camouflage. Frogs and toads do not drink water. Instead they absorb water through their skin via osmosis but this also means that they need to remain moist because they lose water easily too. Being the second most common amphibian on the estate, after the Common River frog, Raucous toads move far away from their breeding sites to find enough arthropod food so they have the ability to store large amounts of water in their enlarged bladders and lymph sacs to keep them moist during these sorties. Even those huge, bulbous eyes seem to help camouflage the toad. Interestingly, they have powerful muscles attached to the rear of their eyes so they can retract them for protection. They also, quite comically, retract their eyes to help shove large prey items down their gullets, from the inside!

This large, discoteque-patterned caterpillar belongs to the adult Brown-striped Hawk moth, Basiothia shenki, which looks quite similar to the Hawk moth I displayed in October, although the caterpillars look miles apart. The adult moth, as previously mentioned, has a very long proboscis rolled-up, like an elephant's trunk, which is not really designed to reach your beer or wine during sundowners but to reach right to the end of a long spur or flower tube to reach the nectaries at the end thereof. In fact, this species' proboscis is exactly the right length, together with only one other species of moth, to reach the nectaries at the end of the long spur at the rear of the stunningly beautiful orchid, Satyrium longicauda which is quite common here on the estate in high altitude grasslands, particularly around Mount Anderson's summit. These lovely orchids are starting to flower now and will do for most of January too. I recently read an article where experiments were conducted to try to establish how these moths and the orchid's flowers, using protandry, work together to try to minimise self-pollination and maximise pollen export. Protandry is when the flower produces the male parts of the flower before the female parts The orchid has a row of flowers on the vertical inflorescence and the lower flowers open before the ones above them on said inflorescence. Protandry will ensure that, once all the flowers are open, the lower ones will be female and the upper, younger ones will be male. Amazingly, when the moths approach the orchid, they always visit the lower flowers first, depositing the pollen taken from the previous flower with the female while picking up more pollen from the males above to export to the next plant! If the moth visited the flowers the other way, self-pollination would increase (leading to poor seed production) and pollen export would decrease.

This is an apt-named Long-horned Fairy moth from the Ceromitia genus in the Adelidae family of moths. These crepuscular (active at dusk and dawn) moths also have rather long proboscis' and are important pollinators for flowers that open at dawn and dusk to avoid the competition that is present during the day. They are rather primitive and all moths more primitive than these still chew their food, unlike most modern lepidopterans. The long antennae are used by the males to detect pheromones produced by the short-antennaed females. How he successfully flies with those monstrous things is another miracle of nature :) 

It is quite hard to believe that all the insects, all five different looking ones in the two pictures above, are all the very same species, just in different stages of development! While walking in the Steenkamps' waterfalls path in the kloof forests last week, I noticed these strange creatures hanging from the underside of the leaves in a whole bunch of trees in one area. I took these photographs and collected a few pupae (the yellow-and-black chequered hanging things on the first photo), put them in an aired bottle and waited for the adults to emerge. The beetle in the bottom photo is the resulting adult! It is a Leaf beetle from the Garelucinae sub-family in the Chrysomelidae family of 35 000 described species and an estimated 60 000 species of plant-eating beetles! The larvae look similar to caterpillars from the Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) as they munch the leaves of a tree except, like all beetle larvae, they just have legs at the very front of the long body, unlike lepidpterans whose legs run all the way down the long body or just the front end and the back end, like inchworms.

Can you spot the Cape Robin-chat as she incubates eggs in her nest? She has constructed it in a particularly thick, shrubby River Sage in the garden of Finsbury House (unit 23). A very common bird in our gardens, the Cape Robin-chat, Cossypha caffra, surely must be familiar to all who are reading this. The song, a ubiquitous sound in the garden, is almost always sang by the dominant male in a monogamous territorial pair while the female usually only sings if her mate has perished and she is on the lookout for a new partner. The pair will establish a tiny territory that they will aggressively defend against others of their species but, unlike many monogamous species, the male and female do not spend much time together. They forage separately and even roost separately in the night. The female builds the nest on her own, incubates the eggs and hatchlings on her own and initially feeds the newly hatched chicks on her own, with the male only chipping in to help once the hatchlings begin to grow. Also, unlike many monogamous birds, the Cape Robin-chat pair do not sing in duet to strengthen their bond. The diet is catholic although more emphasis is put on insects and other small arthropods than scavenging and fruit, although they are important for seed dispersal for most of our indigenous riverine trees here on the estate. These eggs hatched and the mother successfully fledged the chicks just over two weeks. The youngsters are now following their mother all over while she supports them and teaches them what they should and shouldn't eat. The Cape Robin-chat is one of the favourite victims of the brood parasite, the Red-chested Cuckoo, more commonly referred to as a Piet-my-vrou.

This beautiful caterpillar is that of a Lappet moth, Eutricha obscura, in the Lasiocampidae family of moths. It looks very similar to the Cape Lappet moth caterpillars which are normally found in large aggregations on the stems and trunks of trees that make them on of the more commonly observed caterpillars. The adult is a large brown moth with a wingspan of about 70mm. The long hairs on the caterpillar are poisonous and so one should avoid touching them. If you brush a part of your body against the caterpillar, the hairs break off into your skin and urticarial weals (hives) will form almost immediately, causing some discomfort. In more serious cases, the entire affected limb will swell and systemic reactions may result in vomiting and anaphylaxis. If you have brushed against one, the best way to remove the hairs is to cover the area with duct tape and then to peel it off, removing the poisonous hairs at the same time.

The other day, as I emerged onto the flatlands of Goudkoppies from the Troutkloof waterfall side of the Zebra trail, I was greeted by a most pleasant sighting: A Blue Crane, Grus paradisia, South Africa's national bird, foraging in the grasslands a mere thirty meters from me! Barely visible to the left of the rocks in the photo, the bird walked slowly away from me as it entered Mount Anderson Ranch property. I really could have gotten a photo when it was still much closer but I was enjoying the moment too much to have thought of it! I searched carefully for its mate and saw nothing, suggesting that this was a youngster who had not yet found a mate to team up with. Like many birds, they are monogamous but these large birds, males can reach five-and-a-half kilograms, become quite a charismatic pair. They are vociferous with their many different deep, guttural squawks which are loudly proclaimed in duet, with the male having the deeper voice. (So, unlike the eagles, the Crane male is larger than the female and he has a deeper voice) And aggressive too, mainly towards Wattled Crane near the nest which is something I have not observed. The Blue Cranes that we see here (I've now seen them on Goudkoppies, twice above the cliffs on our boundary with Potato Seed, and numerous times in the open plains of Haartebeesvlakte) more than likely roost, nest and congregate in the Steenkampsberg area between Dullstroom and Belfast, which is a very important breeding area for this threatened species. I have heard them calling and, I assure you, it is loud and unforgettable.

I was walking along the base of the cliffs below Goudkoppies, above the Miner's cottage and noticed many blooming Harveya huttonii, a parasitic plant that is only noticeable when in flower. These odd, pale plants belong to the Broomrape family (Orobanchaceae), which is a family of parasitic plants that attach themselves to the roots of the host plant: Orobos = legume (gr); anche = strangle (gr). Until recently, all the members of the family were holoparasitic like the plant above, which means that they cannot survive without their host plant. Recently, all the parasitic members of the Snapdragon family were transferred from there to the Broomrape family, which introduced the hemiparasites to the family. Hemiparasites are able to photosynthesise for themselves and can therefore survive without a host. The seeds from the above Harveya rest just below the ground and will not germinate until they receive a chemical signal from a host plant's roots. The signal from the potential host is not intended, they are merely plant root exudates that leach into the surrounding soil. Once the parasite's seed detects the chemical, it germinates and sends haustorial roots in the direction where the concentration of chemicals increase, therefore closer to the host plant. The host must be close enough for the parasites roots to reach it with their very limited energy supply. Once reached, the haustoria of the parasite attach themselves and tap into the xylem and/or phloem of the host and begin to grow. The parasitic plant, if dug up, just looks like a pale, swollen root, and only reveals itself when it blooms like the one pictured above.  

Funny. On my way to town recently, with our vehicles slipping and sliding down the access road toward the railway tracks as if they had a life of their own, I spotted a Speke's Hinged tortoise, Kinixys spekii, crossing the road from one of the plots to another. In fact, it was very close to the spot where I saw the chameleon on the power line (see blog of Finsbury Autumn Wildlife, February 2020). It is the very first tortoise I have seen near the estate since I got here almost nine years ago! The hinge the name refers to, is on the hind section of the shell so that the tortoise can close off the tail area by bringing the upper carapace (where the hinge is) down on to the plastron (the flat bottom of the shell). When other tortoises retract into their shells they pull their head in and cover it with the large, armoured front legs but cannot cover the tail section properly to keep some predators out. On more than one occasion, I have witnessed a Ground Hornbill (that massive predatory bird found in the lowveld) eating the flesh of a tortoise (Leopard tortoise on both occasions) from the gap between the carapace and plastron at the tail! The Hinged tortoise will be protected from that fate because of the hinge.

This is a Scaly Woodcap, Lentinus stupeus, one of the easier to identify mushrooms in our forests. Although the densly curved, hispid hair looks unappetising, the mushroom has a tough, chewy meat and a strong flavour when young and is much sought after by foragers.

Golden-spotted Sylph, Metisella metis. Metis was a Greek goddess and advisor to Zeus. She was of great use to him and he was wildly attracted to her although it was prophesised that if he lay with her, she would first bare a daughter of infinite wisdom, and then a powerful son. So powerful that he would ultimately overthrow Zeus. After lying with Metis, Zeus, in order to avoid the prophesy from occurring, convinced Metis to turn herself into a fly. When she did this, Zeus quickly swallowed her but it was too late. She was already carrying her daughter to be born Athena, who would be raised in Zeus' mind! Metus crafted weaponry and a shield for her daughter who used them to give Zeus headaches until Zeus ordered his head cut open to release Athena, who was made goddess of warfare wisdom and handicraft. Metis was very beautiful and was adorned in gold, just like this stunning little skipper butterfly.  

This was a stand-off between me and this Darkling beetle from the Psammodes genus, Tenebrionidae family. Tenebrio means "seeker of darkness" because the majority of members are found in dark places where they live long and move slowly, hence Darkling beetles. We, here in South Africa call them Tok Tokkies because of the way they tap their abdomens on the ground, making a soft tok tok tok sound to attract mates (see blog of January 2020 where the inset photo shows the male underside and the point that he taps with). Just look how well armoured the beetle is! It would take a lot to break through that shell. Most beetles lift their forewings, which are hardened as armour, and then spread their hind wings to enable them to fly. These beetles' armour is so thick that it would be unable to fly for the weight, so the forewings have fused and the hindwings disappered, leaving a slow-moving armoured car type beetle to wander the grasslands. In fact, after the beetle dies, their empty carapaces persist for months, hardy against the elements. 

Phew! I have been looking for some of these tiny mushrooms for many years now. They are Termitomyces microcarpus, mushrooms that are associated with termites and their nests. They are the result of an amazing farming culture that evolved in many termites well over three hundred million years ago (we only started farming twelve to thirteen thousand years ago!). Although termites can assimilate the dead vegetation that they collect as food, the nutritional quality of the food is not as high as is required the seer the many complex different castes that the termites require to have a fully functioning eusocial colony. So the termites gather up the dead vegetation and bring it into a group of chambers strategically positioned within the mound so that they remain at a relatively constant temperature with a consistently high moisture content. They pile the vegetation on top of itself 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! At this time of the year, the termites allow the fruiting bodies of the fungus to grow so that the fungus can reproduce. It is edible for us and, although they are small, they are plentiful. 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. There is another common mushroom that occurs here on the estate that associates with termitaria. it is a Podaxis pistillaris and although it is associated with termite mounds in its range, it can survive without the termites and vice versa. The Podaxis fungus appears to grow from the faeces of the termites within the mound and there is no evidence that the termites eat the fungus or utilise it in any way. It seems like a comensal relationship where the mushroom benefits and the termite is not affected. In my blog of December 2016 I erroneously stated that the Podaxis was farmed by the termites. 

I found this daytime moth holding two old grasstalks together, in the wind, while it laid its eggs on them. It was quite a feat and I was surprised by the moth's strength! After much searching and deliberation, I discovered it is called an Equine Maiden, Thyretes hippotes, from the Erebidae family of moths. What was so surprising is that the distribution maps in my book and on the internet confine the species to the Fynbos biome in the extreme Western Cape, with the larva's food plant being a species of plant that does not occur here, although we have some close relatives. The admin folks from the insect forum on the internet that I belong to seemed quite excited by the find. That's another species for my moth list which is very, very far from home it seems!

Another animal that I have been on the lookout to photograph for the whole time I have been here, a Common Platanna, Xenopus laevis, found just outside my house during the recent persistent rains. Unlike most amphibians, the adult frogs rarely leave the water so they are very difficult to photograph. Or though they are endemic to Sub-Saharan Africa, they are very well known internationally, even to the layman because in the early nineteen thirties, it was discovered that if you inject a little bit of woman's urine into the back leg of the frog, by the next day it would have laid eggs if the woman was pregnant. It was a very accurate pregnancy test and was widely used until the late nineteen fifties. By this time the frog had been exported throughout the world, becoming the go to frog for all frog related experiments in laboratories world-wide. Because of this, the African Clawed frog (English name) has become an exotic pest in many countries. It is still the most used frog in laboratories and its cells are the source of Xenobots, man-made biological robots! Xenobots were created from frog stem cells in twenty twenty. They consist of skin cells and heart cells. Future applications could be to carry medicines around the body or to gather plastic microdots from the ocean into sizable solids that can be collected as an environmental remediation exercise. Google Xenobots, you'll be amazed. 

Wow, what a diverse bunch of goodies I got to see in the last two months! A lovely way to end the year. We here at Finsbury wish all those that celebrate Christmas a MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR to all! See you in the new year... 2022!

OCTOBER 2021

 OCTOBER 2021

Well, October has certainly been a strange month weather-wise. We have had seven rainfall events during the month but only an average of 60mm has fallen. This is wonderful for the grasses as all the new seedlings can arise without being washed away, allowing them to establish themselves which, in turn, will minimise erosion when the big rains come. But it has not been all that wonderful for the anglers because the river levels are still critically low. The long forecast does suggest that we will be having an above average rainfall this season, so let's hope lots of rain is on the way. 

The only place in the whole country that claimed it was able to fix my little camera couldn't without needing to send it overseas! Can you believe? Anyway, I had them ship it back to me and I have replaced the lens glass myself, with the plastic from a cellular phone screen protector and although I will not take any more underwater photos, it seems to have worked because the photos are coming out clearly again. So below is a gallery of things I got to see this month past:

Well, this is the last underwater image I will take with my little camera. It is of Common River Frog's, Amieta quecketti, tadpole. River frog tadpoles usually take between nine and twelve months to develop to the stage where final metamorphosis begins, a drastic change of structure and organs which will allow it to leave the water as a frog. If there is a shortage of food or the surroundings are very cold, development could take up to two years. Once the very under-developed tadpole emerges from the egg, it immediately attaches itself to the bottom of the stream with the help of a sticky patch below its mouth, so as not to wash away with the stream current. External gills are immediately produced, allowing the creature to breath. Within a few days the spiracle, a slit on the left side of the body develops and a membrane encloses the external gills and they become internal gills over which water is pumped and expelled through the spiracle. Then the karatinised mouthparts develop with rows of teeth designed to scrape algae off rocks or bacteria and plant material from underwater stems, which is the main food of the tadpole. The eyes develop at the same time. By this stage the tadpole is free swimming and can begin to feed. After a few months, hind legs begin to grow from buds and forelegs begin to develop within the gill chamber, inside the tadpole. When the tadpole has developed fully and is ready to metamorphise, it stops feeding and hides away while the fore legs, already fully developed, erupt from the skin and internal organs develop, including lungs so that the tadpole has gills and lungs and can breathe through both, coming to the surface of the stream to breathe air. The mouthparts recede and widen, losing the keratinised teeth while the whole head changes shape. Finally, the tail is absorbed by a process called apoptosis, a controlled and rather complicated disintegration and absorption of the cells. The young Common River frog adult will now be able to leave the water for a terrestrial lifestyle. I don't know how long they live but it seems that they can live for surprisingly long. There are the following South African records: Cape Sand Frog 18 years; Red-legged Kassina 23 years; Common Platanna 30 years; and the Giant Bullfrog 35 years!    

In the last few months we have been priveledged to get numerous sightings of a juvenile Crowned Eagle, Africa's most powerful eagle, around the central and southern parts of the estate. I recently cleared some alien plants from the fringes of the forested gorge that runs in a southerly direction just opposite Grilse Cottage (unit 18), from the valley bottom up towards Little Joker koppie. About two thirds the way up the gorge I came upon a massive Cabbage tree, Cussonia spicata, like the one Lone Tree Cottage (unit 3) is named after, growing from a shelf in the side of the gorge slope, pictured above. The nest is most certainly that of a young pair of Crowned eagles and is very typical of their nests. The reason I say young is because Crowned eagles, well all eagles really, use the same nest over and over for their entire breeding lives unless the nest is destroyed or they are chased away by humans. They may rotate between two nest also, though. Each year they will add new sticks and branches to the nest so that it grows bigger and bigger. This particular nest appears as if it has only been used for one or two seasons so far so the pair was probably only formed a few years ago. About a year ago I watched a pair displaying and calling along the upper slopes and cliffs of Little Joker koppie and, after the female who is easily distinguished by being larger than the male, departed, the male swooped down on a small group of four Mountain Reedbuck and tried to catch one! But missed. The Reedbuck regathered nervously while the eagle circled overhead again and didn't seem to be aware that the threat came from above. That's what it seemed like, anyway. I am now sure that this pair is the same pair nesting in, what is now called Crowned Eagle gorge, just opposite Grilse Cottage in the Steenkamps valley. Incidentally, I have encountered what looks like an abandoned Verreaux's eagle (Black eagle) nest on the cliffs below Little Joker mine, above the gorge that runs the most east of the three gorges that spread out south from behind Bulldozer Creek (unit 21). Lovely to have a resident pair of Crowned eagles on the estate 

A few days ago, I went to inspect the raking of a tracer that we have cut along a part of the path of the Amphitheater hike, the ten plus kilometer hike that starts and ends in Hidden valley (South valley), for a burn we have planned. The clouds were quite low when I ascended in the morning, In fact, the heading photo for this blog was taken that morning during my ascent. By the time I had finished with the tracer, the clouds had lowered significantly and my vision was limited to only a few meters. I decided to test my directional capabilities and spiraled up to the summit of Mount Anderson, at a gentle trajectory, in the thick mist. Wow! It was eerily quiet and a Steppe Buzzard, I think, flew within a few meters of me, silently, and alighted on a nearby rock. A little further along, I noticed the silhouettes of two buck ,Reedbuck or Rhebok, staring silently at me. And then the raptor glided between us again. Gee, it was a spiritual experience, I tell you! Anyway, during this incredible experience, I did stumble upon a few flowers that I could not identify. This was one of them. I have since been able to identify it as a Shortstyle Uintjie, Morae brevistyla, an intricately designed Iris in the mists of the highest peak in the area. Interestingly, what separates our Moraea genus from the European Iris is the fact that European irises have a rootstock, while our Moraea have bulbs, a defense against the natural fires that have swept through the grasslands forever. Needless to say, fortunately, during my descent, I was able to intercept the path of the Rock Kestrel trail and get safely back to my motorcycle. What a gas!   

On that same lekker day, very close to where I found the very exciting Eucomis sonnetteana (see blog January 2020), I managed to photograph this tiny (3cm high flower and 3cm long leaf blade) Mokobulan African Hyacinth, Ledebouria mokobulanensis. The plant was discovered and described by Sandie Burrows, a well known and loved local botanist in 2008 and is decrared VU (vulnerable) in Red List. This is what they have to say: "This range-restricted endemic is known from three locations along the highest peaks of the Mpumalanga escarpment, amidst extensive forestry plantations. Potentially threatened at all three locations by mining, expanding forestry plantations and ... inappropriate fire management... This species is a range-restricted endemic. It is known only from 3 locations, growing on and around the high peaks of the Mokobolwane Mountain Range, in the Lydenburg Centre of Plant Endemism (Lötter et al. 2002), along the Mpumalanga escarpment in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The species occurs in short, high-altitude grassland, between 2 000–2 200 m altitude, and steep rocky slopes, usually amongst rocks and grass. At such high altitudes, the grasslands are bathed in mist on a regular basis, especially during the wet summers. Much of the precipitation is received as condensation from this mist." I had this hyacinth on my Finsbury plant list but had combined it with a, not so, similar looking species, Ledebouria cooperii, in my ignorance. This sort of thing is very exciting for me (:  

I like to try add a bird species to my blogs and, as you know, my camera is not suited to this sort of thing, and the lens was so terribly scratched at this time, so the picture is of poor quality (especially since it has been cropped). But this is my resident, extremely local, Cape Wagtail, Motacilla capensis. I was really not further than three meters from him/her when I took the photo. We've got to know each other, me him and her, and they have become very bold as they strut around, wagging their tales vigorously, while plucking unsuspecting arthropods from the depths of my lawn. I have never been able to find any literature explaining why they constantly wag their tails but the wagging does become more frantic when the bird is alarmed or anxious. The Cape Wagtail is monogamous and the breeding pair usually remain together for life. They defend a very large breeding territory, around twenty five square kilometers, from which they will evict any other adult wagtails of their species. They will then, together, construct four or five untidy cup-shaped eggs within this territory, either on the floor in rank bush, in the lower branches of a thick bush or even in a depression on a river bank, and finally choose their favourite from these in which to breed. Once the eggs are laid, both sexes perform incubation duties although the female usually spends the night in the nest while the male roosts nearby. Once hatched, all duties are again shared between the parents and the young are fully fledged in just over a fortnight. The parents will teach the young how to hunt and help feed them for about a month after that before they are evicted from the territory and the mating pair go at it again. They have an extremely long breeding season that lasts most of the year so one breeding pair can successfully raise up to six broods a year. Like a factory! Because they have taken to humans and their gardens, domestic cats are amongst their worst enemies. Other enemies include raptors and snakes. Another common enemy is the Red-chested Cuckoo, commonly known as a PIet-my-vrou, that finds the nest and lays its own egg within, forcing the Wagtails to raise chicks from a different species of bird. 

I have erected a pair of camera traps on the Zebra trail, just before you reach the Rock Pool (see Zebra Trail in your activities guide at the back of your house file) and have captured a bunch of mammals so far. Like leopard, klipspringer, mountain reedbuck, grey rhebok and regularly, an adult eland bull, (previously Taurotragus oryx), who is in his breeding condition where he becomes very much less sociable towards other bulls and cows uninterested in mating. Physically, he develops a tuft of black hair over his highly placed pre-orbital glands on his forehead which he rubs against any object standing still long enough so as to spread his personal scent as far and wide as possible, advertising his status to receptive females and potential male rivals. If two breeding males find themselves after the same receptive cow, they will not hesitate to fight, sparring and jostling with those short, compared to the cows', but sharp horns. No literature that I have consulted suggests that they will fight to the death, and I wouldn't believe it if it did, until I actually saw it myself a few years ago during one of our September game count operations with Trent, the manager of the Rattray's property next door. On this occasion, we saw, from the Rattray's game-drive vehicle, three eland in the distance up on the Goudkoppies flats. Two of the eland were large bulls and they were wrestling their horns while a cow observed. As we watched from a distance, one of the bulls turned around and walked off into a rocky thicket of trees and shrubs that formed an island in the open plains while the other bull and the cow ambled off together into the distance. When we approached the scene where they had battled, we noticed a large puddle of blood on the ground that had a trail into the thickets where the lone bull disappeared. We followed the blood trail on foot and found the lone bull, freshly dead on his side in the thickets with a fatal stab wound in his abdomen! Clearly they are prone to fight to the death over an oestrus cow, and so, with such high stakes, they must practice and this they do by sparring as youngsters and also by thrashing, when they fight a tree and usually win by breaking its branches or by felling it if it is small enough.

On the subject of camera traps, the Rivett-Carnac family at Pebble Creek (unit 25) have a camera trap set in one of our true wilderness areas, on the seldom used grass track (Loop road) that reaches the far northern portion of the estate. It was in the morning when condensation was high but it is clear that this leopard had just killed a Grey Rhebok ram and was busy dragging it out of peering eyes, But not the cameras'! It has been a month of many leopard sightings on the estate, starting with the sighting of an inquisitive young female lying on the Kliprots road near K12 by the O'Neill group from Lone Tree Cottage (unit 3). This inquisitive female was seen three or four more times by staff and visitors. Then a group from Whisky Creek (unit 8) got a thrilling sighting on foot of a large leopard on the Steenkamps river before Don, Anne and I got treated to multiple sightings of a pair of mating leopards who mated all night between our two houses! Don and Anne saw the pair just outside their pedestrian gate and I got to see the male twice, once from my bathroom window and once right outside my bedroom window. I went to sleep to the aggressive growling and spitting of these two mating leopards that night. Wow! In just over three months now, we can expect new cubs on the block.

Oh, it's so nice to have moisture again! The mosses, club mosses and hair mosses, the epiphytic ferns and lichens, like this Smooth Lungwort, Lobaria quercizans, have all absorbed the moisture that has been lingering over the estate, although not really turning into real rainfall. It has been very cloudy and misty, especially at higher altitudes and this is enough for these types of organisms. As mentioned many times in these articles, lichens consist of a symbiotic alliance between a fungus, that provides structural support and some minerals extracted from the anchor site, and an algae which provides the required sugars via photosynthesis. The orange-brown discs are the apotheca, the fruiting body. These apotheca are constructed of tightly interwoven hyphae (fungal strands that normally spread out from the body to access the substrate for food) with millions of asci, small discs that produce spores, the "eggs" of the fungus part of the lichen. These spores are spread when water splashes into the orange-brown disc and splash them away. The spores will have to meet up with the correct algae species before a new lichen will be formed.

I found this Cockscomb Fern, Schizaea pectinata, at the very top of a gorge, above Jackpot Cottage (unit16), where the gorge gives way to grassland. The head, which I am holding between my thumb and forefinger, is the reproductive part of the plant that releases the reproductive spores of the fern. This fern is rather common in the northern hemisphere but less so in the south. In South Africa it is common, together with another species, S tenella, in our fynbos biome in the Cape but much less common here in the summer rainfall areas. In fact, it is the first of the species that I have encountered on the estate so far. A new fern for our list. Groovy.

This is a photo of a Cape Hawk, Theretra capensis, one of those hawk moths with the long proboscis, rolled up under the chin here like an elephant's trunk, that sits on your beer can, or wine glass, and shares your sundowner with you. Quite common, this moth occurs from the point of the Cape all the way up through Kenya. The huge, smooth and fat caterpillar, bright blue-green with a tail horn, greedily eats the leaves of plants mainly from the grape family, the Northern Bushman's grape, Rhoicissus tridentata cunefolia, a creeping trifoliate plant that commonly grows on forest edges and rank bush is particularly favoured here on the estate.

Luckily, we have had very few medical emergency situations on the estate but somebody does hurt themselves every now and again. As a past guide in the lowveld, I have had to complete my level I First Responder course quite a few times to remain validly licensed to guide. But one gets rusty quite quickly with the details of it all and so I mentioned this to the board and, Wammo! they sent me on a five day, level III Wilderness First Responder course, held in Bryanston and Magaliesberg. Wilderness is defined, in this sense, as an area where medical assistance is more than an hour away. So it is not just a matter of first aid but to keep the patient stable for a length of time. And so off I went on this course and found that, not only was I rusty, but a lot has changed. One must remember that first aid is an evolving art and is regularly modified as new information and experiences come to light. I particularly enjoyed this course because it dealt with situations that would more likely occur here at the estate and because of the practical element of the course that we practiced in the Magaliesberg range between Haartebeespoort dam and Rustenburg.

We covered all the usual topics like patient assessment but went into deeper detail with a primary and a secondary assessment, including a rapid trauma survey, vital signs and pain assessment and head to toe survey all to help establish a precise diagnosis of a patient in a far-away place. The advantage of this course is that we practiced these things in simulated exercises in a true wilderness area. We carried this "patient" for about a kilometer and had to then pass the make-shift stretcher, patient within, over a gate and proceed. Good practice, We also learned many other ways of carrying a person out of the wilderness.

We covered subjects like acute coronary syndromes like angina; respiratory emergencies including asthma and hyperventilation; bleeding, like abrasions, lacerations, contusions etcetera; fractures; burns including lightning strike injuries which is probably the biggest danger faced in an open grassland situation like that at the estate. We covered penetrating and blunt force trauma which, in the wilderness, could result from a fall here in the mountains. As a first for me, we covered the subject of diabetes in quite detail and then also all the allergic reactions that one may encounter in a wilderness area, including anaphylaxes. Importantly because it is such a real threat here, we covered thermoregulation including Hyper and hypothermia; drowning and high altitude emergencies like altitude sickness. We naturally covered spinal injuries and, pictured, is us practicing lifting a patient on to a spine board without moving their spine.

So there's the certificate. But please let me not have to use these skills.

That's it for October as summer approaches with the Christmas season just around the corner. Almost mid-November as I write this and the water levels are still very, very low. Here's to hoping for more rain to fall in the near future. 

EARLY SPRING TIME

EARLY SPRING-TIME

 

It has been more than two months since my last blog and the temperature has gone from freezing to quite hot in that time. We have also had three small rain showers delivering a combined rainfall of around that ten millimeters which is not much but hopefully an indicator of early rains during spring-time which is very beneficial for our grasslands. There has certainly been a lot of cloud cover and moisture recently as one can see in the photo of Mount Anderson above, taken from the road surrounding Little Joker Koppie.

The rivers, particularly the Majubane, are running very low at the moment. Some of the members told me that they have never seen Whiskey 6 weir as low as it is. One would think this is odd considering that we had above average rainfall last season but it just goes to show how important soft rains are: So even though we had above average rains last season, (mean average for the central area over the last 11 years is 890mm, last season's total was 1037mm) a lot of it was delivered to us in the form of flash floods during our visit from Cyclone Eloise. This deluge of water fell quickly and rushed off downstream without getting much opportunity to soak into the ground. Furthermore, most of the rains for the remainder of the season were also rather violent so did not have much time to soak in as well. In contrast, the previous season's average at the central area was 704mm which is almost 20% lower than the annual average but the little rains that did fall were soft and absorbing resulting in the rivers flowing very well right through the dry season.

Thick frost on the rose-like leaves of an Ouhout tree, Leucosidea sericea. Quite a lot of moisture has resulted in some mornings being very frosty, even up until now towards the end of September. I've even noticed new seasonal leaves dying from frost while they are still buds. During all this confusion, the Ouhouts have also bloomed together with the blossoms of the Prunus trees on the estate, a sure sign of spring-time.

A pair of Sugar ants, Camponotus valdeziae, communicating  while searching for food in a forest of desiccated clubmoss. Communication is achieved by the transfer of pheromones between the two individuals. These sugar ants are what is referred to as "catholic" in their diet, meaning that they eat pretty much anything they can get hold of, be it vegetables or meaty things either hunted or scavenged. I have, so far, identified fourteen of the very many species of ant on the estate and have posted information on these amazingly successful insects on many occasions (blogs: March 2018, September 2019, January 2020, May 2020, July 2020, October 2020, April 2021 and Finsbury Autumn Wildlife) so I will not go into them except to mention that they probably evolved from a stinging wasp about 168 million years ago before the Cretaceous (145 - 60 mya). But it was only after the emergence of flowering plants around 100 mya that they began to seriously diversify and they achieved the ecological dominance they enjoy today about 60 mya. Such dominance that, in the tropics, ants account for a quarter of the total animal biomass. That means that if you take all the animals, from insects to birds to mammals etc, and weighed them, twenty five percent of that mass will be ants alone! Regarding the Clubmoss forest that the ants are foraging in, a blog from October 2020 explains how clubmosses are like a bridge between the more primitive, non-vascular mosses and the more advanced flowering plants that have advanced vascular systems that carry water and nutrients around the body of the plant. This clubmoss is referred to as Ressurection Clubmoss, Selaginella dregei, and it is called that because it desiccates completely during the dry season and turns a pale grey colour like in the picture but, after sufficient rainfall, the primitive vascular system sees to it that the seemingly dead plant inflates, stands erect and returns to its healthy green colour.

While we're on the topic of mosses, A few members have referred to the white, moss-like plants noticeable at this time of the year on the estate, as a moss. In fact, they are not mosses at all but a clumpy, carpet-like (in botany, referred to as being caespitose) version of a typical Everlasting, called a Clumpy Strawflower or, more correctly, Snowball Everlasting, Helichrysum caespititium, with minute leaves, stems and flowers (see inset). I featured this plant in my blog of September 2019 but have since discovered some more interesting things about it: Besides the safe phlorogucinol extracted from the plant, and it's known anti-microbial actions, extracts have been proven to successfully treat all four strains of N. gonorrhea. This has been an exciting discovery because there has been concern over the continuing efficacy of the existing drugs that treat gonorrhea and this extract provides a suitable alternative. A further update from the blog in 2019 is that my list of Everlastings / Strawflowers / Paperflowers has increased from 19 species to 34 since then. 

As I've mentioned before, I have to be very close to a bird with this little camera of mine to be able to get an even half decent shot so you can imagine how close this male Buff-streaked Chat, Campicoloides bifasciatus, was to me, cursing me with some nasty language it seemed. All this while I identified the community of trees and plants protected by a rocky outcrop up on the grasslands on the slopes of Little Joker Koppie, high above Morrin Pools and Jackpot Cottage on the Majubane river. These birds are endemic to the grassland biome of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland and so are a prized lifer for many international birders. The loud, melodic jumble of whistles that the birds produce are easily recognisable and used to chase away, not just other Buff-streaked Chats, but other birds too, like pipits, other chats, Stone Chats and cisticolas, from their territory. In fact, this is what I think this aggressive male bird was trying to achieve when approaching me, although I could have also been very close to a nest but I think it was a little too early for them to be breeding. The nest is a large, untidy mass of grass and roots with a cup in it that is placed on the floor, usually on the down-hill side of a large boulder or in the crevices between boulders in the sort of rocky outcrop I was visiting that day. Interestingly, unlike many birds that re-use their nests. not just in the same season but also in successive years, the Buff-streaked Chat only uses a nest for a single breeding attempt, building a new one if they have a second brood in the season. Once the chicks have fledged, they usually remain with their parents for another full season and help to raise the new offspring before going out into the big wide world for themselves.

This strange, purplish growth with a solid crust is called a King Alfred's Cake, Daldinia concentrica, and is almost the only fungus, besides lichens, that can be easily found in the forests during the end of the dry season. The name King Alfred's Cake comes from the legend that King Alfred, later Alfred The Great, the king of the West Saxons and later the Anglo Saxons in the ninth century who, while fighting the Vikings, hid out in a village house. He was requested to remove a cake from the oven when it was ready but fell asleep instead, resulting in the cake being burnt. The fungus is presumed to resemble the burnt cake. Like most fungi, King Alfred's Cake is cosmopolitan and can be found in all continents except the Arctic and Antarctic wherever trees grow. The inedible flesh of the fungi is found beneath the hard shell and is arranged in concentric rings like that of the trunk of a tree with each ring representing a season of growth which will renew each year. One can therefore estimate the age of the fungus by counting the rings. The practical uses of the fungus range from using the dried flesh as tinder when starting a fire with flintstone, to producing a colourfast purple dye to extracting a metabolite called Concentricol, which is oxidised Squalene, an organic oil, originally extracted from shark liver oil, which is required to synthesize sterol, a precursor to steroid hormones. Other common names include Carbon Balls, Coal Fungus and Crampballs.  

I went and inspected the very north-eastern block of the estate, the very first block I burned since I have been in charge of the estate's burning policy in 2017. The block was infested with Pine and so I treated it to a hot burn in October of that year just after the first thirty millimeters of rainfall for that season. The burn was very successful in destroying the Pine infestation but naturally, because of the massive seed bed these infestations created, the Pine regrowth in the block was vigorous. So once again, in October last year, I subjected the block to another hot burn after the first rains of the season (see blogs of November 2017 and October 2020). This, once again, successfully destroyed all the new Pine growth and so, a year after again, I conducted a thorough inspection of the block and can report that the Pine problem in the block is very much under control. Now, the two consequences of under-burning mesic grasslands, which encompass the estate, is that the dominant grass tufts smother their neighbouring tufts, and that the exclusion of fire helps to promote the growth and ultimate dominance of woody plants, particularly those found in the fynbos biome, like Helichrysums and Ericas. Both of these maladies negatively affect the basal cover of the grasslands. When basal cover decreases, the distance between the tufts of grass increases, resulting in an increase of bare ground and therefore, an increase in sheet erosion and the loss of topsoil during rains. So in an area that is not burned frequently enough, even if the grass swathe looks good, a closer inspection will find large areas of open ground between the grass tufts and, ultimately, the dominance of woody shrubs. In the photo above, you can see how poor the basal cover was after the last burn because of the amount exposed ground. On closer inspection, though, you will see that the two burns, three years apart, are starting to achieve positive results. I counted thirty brand new grass tufts in the green rectangle I have drawn in the photo! After the next rainy season the basal cover in the photo would have closed over completely, thoroughly improving the health and the absorption ability of the grasslands which will reduce the loss of topsoil during rains and reduce space for the woody plants to grow. The increased absorption qualities of the grasslands will, in turn, ensure that less water from the rainfall is lost to run-off, which means that the aquifers on the estate are filled properly during the rainy season, resulting in strongly flowing streams during the dry season, the ultimate function of the grasslands in a water catchment area like ours. 

On the very western side of the Zebra trail along the high altitude mountain stream that falls over the Troutkloof waterfalls, there is a nice little pool where I take a drink before ascending to the top of Goudkoppies. At this little crystal clear pool, as with most others, if you look carefully at the bottom, you will most likely see strange little insects of differing sizes that resemble the one in the photo. They are Mayfly nymphs which are also discussed in blogs of September 2019 (nymphs) and September 2020 (adult). As mentioned there, the adults are very short-lived and their only function is to find a mate and mate and lay eggs. Their short adult life is attributed to the fact that the mouthparts are fused and so the insect is unable to feed. Their tummies are filled with air which makes them rather buoyant and so when their is a "hatch" you will find a cloud of adult males dancing lightly in the air above the water. The egg-laden female detects these clouds of males and flies into it when a male will grab her from underneath with his long, double-jointed forelegs which bend awkwardly backwards and hold her wings closed and out of the way for the brief moment he mates with her in mid-air. To achieve this, the male has double eyes, a top pair to solely seek the female, and a lower pair for normal activities. The nymph in the picture is therefore a well-developed male by the presence of double eyes and wing buds. Anyway, the male dies immediately thereafter while the female will just have enough resources to develop her eggs, which are  only a quarter of a millimeter in length, and then fly across the surface of the water depositing them one-by-one as she dips her abdomen in the water. These minute eggs sink to the bottom and rest for about three weeks before hatching into tiny nymphs who swallow detritus, extract the nutrients, and excrete the rest. The larvae moult about twenty times over a period of six months up to two years, depending on the species.  

Every year at around this time, a pair of Lesser Striped Swallows, Cecropis abyssinica, come and inspect my house as a place to build their nest, I guess, because they fly into the house when the door is open and often get themselves caught on the inside against a window, resulting in me having to remove them like the one in the photo above. The swallows are intra-African migrants with complex movements specifically as monogamous pairs in our area move to the South Eastern coast during winter, whereas those from just north of us migrate into Zimbabwe and the Zim birds migrate further north. All very confusing. They have not yet approved of my house because they have never built their nest there but, if they did, they would collect mud that they roll into pellets in their beaks and coat with mucus before regurgitating the pellets as tiny mud bricks that they use to construct an enclosed bowl with a long entrance passage beneath the eaves on my patio. This elaborate and strong nest takes more than a month-and-a half to build although the monogamous pair begin roosting in it long before it is completed. Once completed the birds line the bowl inside and lay two to four eggs that are incubated by the female alone for up to three weeks before the chicks hatch. Once hatched, the chicks are fed by both parents who also remove their droppings while they are still tiny. Larger chicks reverse out to the edge of the passage entrance and defecate over the edge. After less than three weeks, the fledglings exit the nest and are still fed by the adults, with who they roost inside the nest at night, for another three to four weeks before becoming self sufficient. The adults will re-use this well-constructed nest for many years to come with some minor maintenance although, sometimes the nest is taken over by Mocking Cliff-Chats, Southern Grey-headed Sparrows or White-rumped Swifts.   

The male Leptophatnus sp., a parasitic wasp from the Ichneumonidae family, is rather easily identified as a male by the absence of a long ovipositor extending from the rear of its abdomen, a characteristic feature of Ichneumonid females. I featured a female from this family in my blog of February 2020 and a pupal case in my blog of March 2021, where I give a run-down on the family. I did inquire to as many experts as I could to why the abdomen of this male seems to have collapsed but, alas, I received no advice but when the mystery is solved, I will let you in on it...

This little critter, measuring less than a half a centimeter, is invisible against its preferred habitat of lichen-covered rocks unless it moves and you are looking very closely. It is a Booklice or Barklice from the Psocoptera order of insects and the first species illustrating that order on my Finsbury insect list. These small, primitive insects are known as Booklice when they are found, as tiny brown insects, running over stored books feeding on the paste and glue of the bookbindings. They also feed on stored cereal products and can therefore become a major pest but most species are scavengers of insect carcasses and grazers of lichens (like the above individual). Beneath the huge jaws of the insect is an extended mouthpiece consisting of a rod on each side that moves forward and backward with a forked tip. This tool is used to scrape pieces of lichen off the substrate so that it can be eaten. 

I found this beautiful grass aloe in full bloom in the clouds right near the summit of Mount Anderson just recently. The grass aloes mostly flower in the summer like most other plants and the normal aloes flower in the winter. This aloe was flowering at the end of winter and the beginning of spring. I thought it was, and it could still be, an Aloe chortolirioides wooliana but this would be outside its typical flowering time. Then I remembered an article sent to me by Tommie Steyn, a botanist at the Mpumalanga Parks, and him asking if I had found a specimen of the very localised endemic called the Mount Anderson Grass Aloe, Aloe andersonii, which was described in 2014 and ONLY occurs on the eastern and north-eastern slopes of Mount Anderson, restricted to just above the cliffs a few hundred meters below where I found this specimen. I dug out that PDF and the aloe in the above picture sure does fit the description although I will need to measure some of the flower parts to confirm. The PDF has the following to say: "The plant is Rare and confined to Mount Anderson. However, it grows on and above sheer cliffs and is well protected by its difficult to reach habitat. Consequently it is not threatened and is assessed as Least Concern (LC) in the Red List of South African plants. Aloe andersonii is only known from Mount Anderson, which is one peak in the Mpumalanga Drakensberg Escarpment Mountains. It grows on the upper, east-facing slopes, on rocky ledges, just above the sheer cliff faces, at altitudes of 1 200–1 700 m. The plants are frequently covered in fog and cloud. The mineral-poor, quartzitic sandstone rocks give rise to a poor soil to which our plants are well adapted. The Mount Anderson grass aloe shares its habitat with other succulents such a Crassula pellucida subsp. brachypetala and C. sarcocaulis, Rhodohypoxis baurii and Ledebouria saundersiae. The habitat consists of grasslands, which usually burn in the winter months. The rocky habitat ensures its survival and if it does get burnt, the older leaf remains acts as an insulator. The vegetation of Mount Anderson is Lydenburg Mountain Grassland (Mesic Highveld Grasssland Bioregion) and Northern Afromontane Forest in protected kloofs (Mucina 2006)." Exciting stuff! 

We found this Free-tailed bat from the Molossidae family hiding in the hatchery. The name "Free-tailed" comes from the fact that the tail membrane does not reach the tip of the tail like most other bats. The family does have a unique adaption to its tail: It has a ring of cartilage that circles the tail vertebrae and can be moved backwards or forwards along the vertebrae to shorten or lengthen the membrane to suit its flying needs. This, together with long, narrow wings allows it to reach very high speeds with unmatched maneuverability, with limits of nearly 100 km/h at 3 kilometers up, higher and faster than any other bat family. The drawback of these long, narrow wings is that the bat needs to launch itself from a suitable height so that it can drop long enough to reach the speeds required to obtain lift. Because of this, they are extremely good climbers, enabling them to climb high enough for take-off. I didn't know this when I caught this bat but it explains now, why the thing didn't just fly off when my hands were open. I'm afraid I don't know which species this is but suspect it is an Egyptian Free-tailed bat, Tadarida aegyptiaca, and if it is, it normally roosts in caves or mine shafts with ten or twelve other individuals but, some species in the family, can live in colonies numbering up to fifty million individuals!

That's it for springtime. My little camera has been giving me hassles and is now in for repairs in Cape Town. I will be carrying a cell phone with me on my rounds so if I see anything interesting, I can still photograph it. The phone, though, does not have the macro abilities my camera does so I feel future frustrations on their way. Anyway, once my camera returns, it will be like new again so I can take a gazillion photos of everything again and produce monthly blogs again. Stay safe and see you soon!