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.