SPRINGTIME 2022

 SPRINGTIME 2022

What a lovely spring it turned out to be! It was initially dry with a small sprinkle of unproductive rain and then the heavens opened. More precisely, September was dry, with an average rainfall, over the month, of a mere 9,6mm. Patrick's gate recorded the lowest figure of 5mm and Rock Solid in the east with the highest of 14mm. October was much wetter with an average of 70mm. The lowest figure of 59mm recorded at Rock Solid and the highest, 81mm, here at the office. Then November was even wetter with 14 days of rainfall and an average of 129mm falling on the estate. Pebble Creek in the north had a significantly higher recording of 186mm while Rainbow Rivers in the south recorded the lowest figure of 105mm, 74mm difference!

I realised that if I got started on my seasonal patch mosaic burns, the high rainfall would ensure that the affected areas were nice and green again by the jolly season. And so, I ignited two fires at the end of the first week of November and the two fires covered about 400 hectares with the smaller of the two burning the area north of Solitude valley, east of the Kliprots and south of Hidden valley. The larger fire burned south of Solitude valley, east of the Kliprots and north of Rock Solid, covering the latter half of the Rock Kestrel trail. That was three weeks ago, and the entire area is green and lush now.

The above photo of Mount Anderson with a little "cap" of clouds was taken on one of the rarer, clearer mornings just before sunrise from the trig beacon atop Mount Prospect, just east of where the larger of the two fires stopped burning. I think the Rock Kestrel trail will be productive with game during the festive season with its lush grasses, so you'd better start warming up for it. 

Below is a little gallery of some of the things I encountered while traversing this wonderful estate during this pleasant spring:

This is a Lydenburg Opal, Chrysoritis aethon, a small, rather special butterfly, restricted to this area. Although the butterfly was first collected in 1879, near Lydenburg, it was only properly recognised by Pennington (the famous lepidopterist), also near Lydenburg, when the gold rush was in full swing, in 1934. I did feature this butterfly in my issue of January 2020, but I will repeat some of the information because it is espescially interesting. 

In almost all ecosystems in which ants exist, they dominate in sheer numbers and ecologically as the major predator of arthropods. This dominance attracts associations with other species in the same ecological system and, generally, positive associations between ants and other species, be they plants, fungi, mollusks, insects or other arthropods, even birds, is called myrmecophily, which means "love of ants". Most myrmecophiles benefit defensively from ants' aggression and numbers, be it out in the field like scale insects (blog of June 2021, also aphids October 2020), or within the ants' nest (This butterfly and more than half of the butterflies in the Lycaenid family) like, my favourite example, the Hoover mite. This little mite has been used by ants for so long as a vacuum cleaner that it only survives in ants' nests. They are provided with safe, warm and cozy accommodations, in return for eating up all the nests litter, unwanted bacterium and harmful fungi. Many of these associations are "facultative", meaning they are not necessary for the survival of the species involved, but are a benefit. Like with the wax scales and the aphids. The Lydenburg Opal, the majority of Lycaenids (and the little Hoover mite), are obligatory myrmecophiles. This means that they need the association with the ants for their species' survival.

This is how it unfolds: The female butterfly searches for a species of host plant, in this case a Quilted Bluebush, very common on the estate, but she does not settle for one until she finds it infested with Cocktail ants, Crematogaster genus, while they are tending to facultative myrmecophiles like aphids or wax scales, or the site of a Cocktail ant colony's nest (see blog of July 2020). Only then does she lay a single egg amongst the ants, and the ants immediately pick the egg up and carry it back to their nest where it will be protected until it hatches. Once the caterpillar hatches, it exits the ant nest during the hours of darkness, following the well-used ant trail, feeds on the Bluebush and returns to the nest by dawn. All the caterpillar has to do is produce a small drop of extra-rich honeydew for the ants when they ask (by stroking the caterpillar with their antennae) in return for the accommodation and protection from these normally extremely aggressive predatory ants!

I found this Snowy Inkcap mushroom, Coprinopsis nivea, or Tippler's Bane, as the Europeans used to call it, on the Loop Road, standing proudly atop a lone warthog dropping! The proper name is very descriptive: Coprinopsis (Gr) = similar to Coprinus; Coprinus (Gr) = Living on dung; Niveus (L) = Snow-like, snowy, referring to the flaky white remains of the veil on the cap. Very appropriate.

Anyway, unlike most mushrooms that grow on dung, it is edible, although not tasty (says the literature for I have not tasted it). But if you do decide to eat one, make sure you do not drink alcohol for at least five days! The mushroom contains a mycotoxin called Coprine, a toxin that inhibits the development of the enzyme that breaks down alcohol in your system. So, if you eat the mushroom and then drink a beer, expect to get violently ill! Very much like those Antabuse tablets that are prescribed for alcoholism. The more alcohol you consume, the sicker you get. If you stop drinking, then the symptoms disappear within an hour or two. If you resume drinking within the following five days, you get ill again.

The "Inkcap" part of the name comes from the ability to extract a permanent, browny-black ink from the mushroom. Once the spores are produced in the gills, the gills begin to deliquesce into a black, gooey slime. That which drips to the floor, impregnates the floor with spores. The stink of the slime also attracts flies who transport the spores that stick to its legs and when the remaining slime dries, the spores flake off and are transported by wind to far-away places. For those that want to get the ink from the mushroom, simply place a few whole mushrooms into a glass jar and seal the jar for a couple of days until the jar contains a gooey black mess. Sieve the contents through a baking sieve and, Viola, what remains is a good quality ink, albiet a stinky ink! 

This is a pair of Flea Beetles, most likely Diamphidia species, from the Alticini tribe of Leaf Beetles from the Chrysomelidae family of beetles (see blogs of Christmas 2021 and May 2020). A massive family of well-over 35000 described species and about the same amount yet to be described! All leaf beetles are plant feeders, in their larval and adult stages. The female lays her clump of eggs on the underside of a leaf and covers them with her concrete-like faeces to protect them. Once hatched, they munch the leaves of the tree they are born on, very much like the caterpillar of a moth or butterfly. Once developed, the larva drops off the tree and buries itself in the ground to pupate or, like the species in the article in my blog from last Christmas, hangs its pupa from the underside of a leaf. Then, out comes the adult beetle.

Now, one big difference between the alticini tribe and the rest of the Leaf beetles is the fact that they have enlarged back legs. Like that of a flea. And like a flea, used to quickly jump away from danger. No wonder they are so successful. In fact, it is difficult to imagine that they have enemies at all! First line of defense, they have the hard outer chitinous shell that all beetles possess. Then they have wings with which to fly away from predators; then they have these extraorinarily large hind legs enabling them to flick themselves away from predators; And finally, they are filled with toxins to protect them if a really persistent predator still manages to catch them! 

I think I can narrow this species down to the Diamphidia genus, which is the genus whose species contain diamphotoxin, the toxin used by bushmen to poison the tips of their arrows. To achieve this, the San Bushmen would have to dig the larvae, that looks a lot like a "chicken worm" from the ground (A chicken worm is that fat, pale grub with an orange sclerotised head that we see in our compost heaps - the larvae of Scarab beetles) and then simple squeeze the juices from the larva onto the tip of the arrow.

Super! Another species of Dung Beetle for our list, making five species so far recorded on the estate. This is a small species (that is a single Mountain Reedbuck pellet it is preparing to roll) with no common name that I could find. Its proper name is Epirinis validus. Please refer to a blog on Dung beetles I posted during the first lockdown, on Wednesday 6th May 2020, to get some cool information on these remarkable beetles 

This extremely scruffy moth, clinging to the very tip of a twig, is a Golden Tussock moth, Euproctis chrysophaea. They are a common site in the wooded riparian areas in the estate during a short time during the spring months, looking very much like small orange butterflies as they flutter around the river paths during the daylight hours. The species has a very short adult stage where all energy and resources, since the adults do not eat at all, are used solely for finding a mate and procreating. The pupal stage, within a silken and hairy cocoon, is also very short, a month or less.

The caterpillar stage is long, up to eight months in tropical areas, and the caterpillar is not very fussy which plants it eats either, so they can grow quite large. They have long, shaggy hairs, arranged in tufts or tussocks along the body, from whence the common name is derived. Hidden within these long, soft hairs are shorter, stiffer, barbed urticating setae which are hollow hairs attached, at the base, to a tiny venom gland, like a hypodermic needle with venom inside. These protect the caterpillar during this phase of its life and, when it spins its cocoon, it incorporates these setae into the silk which acts as a great defense against potential predators while it is a vulnerable pupa.

Now this is an eye-catcher! It's a Superb False Tiger, Heraclia superba, that I encountered very near the mysterious Southern Steenkamp's waterfall in the shaded gorge. The crumply wings indicate that it must have very recently emerged from its cocoon, which I searched for but didn't find. Most pupal stages during our spring and summer time are short, eight days to a month, suggesting this individual is the second generation this season. The last generation that pupates at the end of the season will over-winter in the pupal stage and emerge after the very first rains of the following season. Once the wings harden on this female, they will fold over her back like a black triangle blotched with white. The red secondary wings are only visible in flight, very much like the Knysna Turacos that flash crimson at the tips of their wings in flight here on the estate.

The resident pair of Southern Boubou, Laniarius ferrugineus, at the office brazenly built their nest in the cubby area of the old landrover from Coch-Y-Bunddhu (unit 1) while it has been parked here at the central area. Southern Boubou are not all that often seen but their sound is loud and I'm sure everybody has heard them as the monogamous pair sing in duet from thick bush. Both sexes initiate a duet but usually the male starts with a loud "Boobooboo!" (from whence the common name comes) and the female responds from nearby with a "Huhoowee!" 

They are sedentary, meaning they are here all year round, with one recorded pair maintaining the same territory for eleven years!  Not often seen because they are usually sneaking through the thick undergrowth searching for their arthropod prey, together with snails, small vertebrates like lizards and geckos, and even small mammals like mice! They also eat fruit and nectar, being a minor pollinator of Cliff Aloes here on the estate.

They build a nest, like in the photo, usually very well hidden in thick bushes but on this occasion, they decided to try the landrover dashboard out. It worked because within a month the chicks, two of them, had fledged and left the nest. The adults could indeed have a second brood but, unfortunately, they will have to build a new nest elsewhere because the old landrover will be washed and used soon.

The very hairy caterpillar of a Clay Monkey moth, Pyllalia patens, which I discovered beneath a rock in the high-altitude grasslands up on Goudkoppies plains. These caterpillars feed on Couch / Bermuda grass, Cynodon dactylon, which is the grass that grows in what were Blesbok middens, circles about a meter to two meters in diameter, up in the high-altitude areas of the estate (I usually point these circles out on the hikes that I conduct). They construct a little nest with an entrance tunnel under a rock nearby one of these circles of Couch grass where they rest up during the day. In the night-time, they come out and munch on the grass before returning to the safety of their nest again before daybreak.

Once they are fully developed, they spin a silken cocoon on the underside of the rock and, after pupating, emerge as a medium-sized, drab, brown moth. Incidentally, these caterpillars also have urticating setae (see above article on Tussock moth) strategically placed among those glorious long, soft hairs. They also, like the Tussock moth caterpillar, incorporate these hairs and setae into the construction of the cocoon which protects the pupa during that vulnerable stage.

I was sitting atop the mountain at the base of Little Joker koppie when I noticed a wasp fly underneath a rock on the ground. I climbed down and found a small wasp's paper nest, with only about eight compartments, so a tiny nest, hanging from the bottom of the rock on a level between the rock and the ground. I thought "gee, that's well hidden!" Even for a Paper wasp colony like that of these Polistes smithii wasps.

Now, if you go back and read the articles on Paper wasps in my blogs of June 2019 and October 2020, you will get a good idea of how the primitive social system of these wasps work. And also learn how they find and capture caterpillars to feed their young in the nest, like birds at a bird nest. They chew the caterpillar into pieces and feed the pieces to the young in the nest. But on this occasion, I saw worker wasps fly to the nest and give the pieces of caterpillar to the wasp who, instead of feeding them to the babies, she ate them herself (pictured)! 

After further research, I found that the babies had probably not yet hatched in the nest and the workers were feeding the Foundress, the wasp that started the colony originally. Feeding the foundress is a gesture of subordination from the workers and helps establish the relationship between the foundress and her subordinates. 

Deep in the forest butting up to the (currently dry) waterfall at the end of Solitude Valley, I encountered the strange Spider flowers of the Forest Poison Rope tree, Strophanthus speciosus. In fact, it can take the shape of a small tree, a shrub, or it can become a scrambling woody climber. Once again, it has a very descriptive scientific name: Strophos = (Gr) Twisted cord; Anthos = (Gr) Flower; Speciosus = (L) Showy.

These Trees make a beautiful garden subject as a pruned small tree, or as a potted plant, or as a creeper and they are quite easily grown from seed or even transplanted as a truncheon. The thick foliage makes the tree a favourite for birds to build their nests in and, of course, the flowers are quite beautiful and, on good years, can cover the whole tree.

The tree contains a watery sap that is poisonous as with many members of the Oleander family (Apocynaceae) and the poison, containing cardiac glycosides, has also been used in the past to treat the end of spears and arrows. The fruit is also typical of the family and consists of a pair of horn-like projections that crack open on a seal to reveal seeds with long filaments of pure cellulose attached to act as sails to enable wind dispersion. These cellulose filaments are highly flammable and were used as a substitute for guncotton for the old musket guns.

An extremely photogenic Equine Maiden, Thyretes hippotes, posing beautifully on a vertical grass stalk. If you go back to my blog of Christmas 2021, you will see that I was quite excited to identify this moth here because the distribution maps indicate that they are a species found in the winter-rainfall areas of South Africa only. Well, I have now found quite a few so the distribution of the species needs to be revised. But what a beautifully designed animal, wow!

The Warthog sounder of a single female. Mommy warthog, on the right, with her son (front left) and daughter (behind) from her previous litter last season and three new little additions for this season. This photo was taken from the fixed-point camera situated at K24. productive, as always! The photo, taken in the last week of spring, shows how nice and lush it is right now!

One thing about the photo, though, is it is skew. I hate that! I always go to such pains to make sure the cameras are set level to the ground. Mmmn, something must have nudged the camera..... 

All one needs to do, is go back on the timeline of photos and see who was responsible for nudging the camera and... here we go! Two days, three-and-a-half hours earlier...

That's it for the spring of Twenty twenty-two. Now the summer begins and so does the wonderful Jolly season! The estate is green, lush, and although the river levels are still not very high, we have quite a lot of rain forcast for the first two weeks of December. I will be here over the festive season so, if you want to take a guided hike or walk on the estate, please don't hesitate to call me over the radio once you are here, or you can send me an email checking my availability at jimmy@finsbury.co.za. I am looking forward to seeing you this festive season!

 

AUGUST 2022

 AUGUST 2022

I'm sure I remember starting off my previous blog (Winter 2022) with a statement that it was such a nice, mild winter. Well, it seems I spoke too soon. The month of August was very cold! With frost on most mornings right up till the end of the month! August was dry too, and windy like it usually is. It is also the month in which the rainy season officially begins although, as usual but unlike last season, it was without rainfall. 

It is interesting to note that rainfall occurred in each and every month of the previous rainy season with the following figures recorded around the estate: This is the second season that I recorded the rainfall in five different locations on the estate. The Central Area (where the office is located) is where the rainfall has traditionally been measured and the season figure for 2022/3 was 1085mm, the highest of the season; as expected, the lowest record was at Patrick's gate on the western border of the estate (only about three kilometers from the Central Area!) with 723mm which is about eighty percent higher than the average for the Lydenburg bushveld biome on which Rivendel is situated (so they had a very wet season); then, in the north of the estate the reading was the second highest, at 1014mm, recorded from the gauge at Pebble Creek (unit 25); the eastern recordings, from the gauge at Rock Solid (unit 22), gave us a seasonal total of 969mm, still higher than the annual average of 890mm; then, the south of the estate had a drier season for whatever reason. There, the gauge at Rainbow Rivers (unit 17) only recorded 793mm, less than the annual average. This is noticeable when one looks at the current lower levels of the Majubane river compared to the others, especially the Kliprots.

If you visited the estate during the end of July or during August, you will not have failed to notice the large, blooming Aloes on and around Klipspringer Hill on Rivendel farm from the access road to Finsbury. They are called Cat's Tail Aloes, Aloe casteana, the tallest of the Bottlebrush Aloes (ie. A. alooides, A. vryheidensis, A. spicata). Aloes are pretty odd-looking plants as it is, but the Cat's Tail Aloe is even more so with its randomly twisting inflorescences with their dull orange flowers twisting up them. The specific epithet casteana is the Latin genus name for Chestnut and refers to the copious, chestnut-brown nectar that is produced by the flowers, relished by the Rock Thrushs featured below. 

The Aloe genus is essentially an African endemic but for its presence on the Yemeni island of Socotra and just north of that in the Arabian Peninsula, although most species up there, especially on Socotra, are endemics to their tiny areas. They also occur in Madagascar where they have evolved from a common ancestor, quite differently from how ours have since this island separated from us here in Africa. The Madagascan aloes are all endemic to Madagascar. But Southern Africa, where the greatest species diversity occurs, also boasts about an eighty percent endemism rate and many of these are endemic to tiny little areas too. And so, although there are some widespread species, most aloes are evolved for a particular geography or microclimate and only occur there or more likely, since many species grow in gardens and nurseries all over the world, have relatively recently speciated and simply haven't had time to disperse widely. This Cat's Tail Aloe only occurs, naturally, in the odd-shaped triangle from Middelburg to Lydenburg to Polokwane and back to Middelburg.

Looks like a big Christmas tree with Baboons instead of decorations! It's the White Stinkwood, Celtis africana, in the north-western corner of the hatchery. Well. I think it is a White Stinkwood because the one just outside the front door of the office is, so I suspect a close neighbour to be too. The reason for my doubt is that the indigenous White Stinkwood is very difficult to tell apart from its exotic relative, the Chinese Hackberry, Celtis sinensis, which is a popular garden tree in South Africa. They occur in the estate around Morrin Pools (unit 14) and a very prominent specimen grows beside the M2 sign. The only way to tell them apart, really, is the indigenous one has hairy leaves as opposed to the smooth leaves of the exotics.

Anyway, I can't tell now because the leaves are still forming after dropping off the tree at the beginning of winter. What you do see on the tree, though, are the small green flowers. And obviously the baboons are relishing them! I watched for a while and the youngsters were playing about but still plucking the tiny flowers off the branches and popping them into their mouths. The females and slightly older males were concentrating on hastily picking as many flowers as possible, one at a time - pick-put-in-mouth, pick-put-in-mouth. The big male (top, left of centre) was guzzling the flowers down by putting his lips over the branch with flowers, and pulling the branch through his lips to strip the flowers off en-masse!

Baboons are great survivors and enjoy an incredibly varied diet from fruits, berries, seeds, grasses, sedges, shoots, roots, bulbs and corms to insects and other arthropods and even meat, like baby antelope hunted by the baboons themselves. Flowers, like on this White Stinkwood, are savoured for their pollen and nectar. Primatologist Andrew Whiten calculated on one occasion that a small group of five adult baboons consumed more than thirty thousand Iris (Moraea) flowers in less than three hours in the Drakensberg

A worried me went and checked the tree after the troop had moved off to see if there were any flowers left or if a whole generation was wiped out in one sitting! No worries, I found the tree no worse for wear. There were still plenty flowers. In fact, it was hard to see where they were removed. I suppose the greatest advantage of producing tens-of-thousands of tiny flowers assures that even a sustained onslaught by a ravaging troop of baboons is still not catastrophic. 

This is a female Red-head Black Velvet Cockroach, Deropeltis erythrocephala, and it is one of the many species of Wild Cockroach found in the grasslands of the estate. In other words, it is not one of the three domesticated species occurring in South Africa, although they have been reported to establish themselves in homes. Domesticated species cannot survive successfully outside of human dwellings.

Cockroaches are very primitive insects said to have evolved from a common ancestor, with Mantids, well over three hundred million years ago and up to four hundred and twenty years ago in the Devonian. I have always been taught that besides Mantids, cockroaches were the closest relatives to the Isoptera order of insects, Termites, and that the similarity of termites to ants was just because they had a similar social caste system to the ants, ants being much more advanced than termites and much more recently evolved. I was not surprised to learn recently that termites are now included in the same order as cockroaches, the Blattoidea. In fact, some species of cockroach are closer related to termites than they are to other cockroaches! 

So, cockroaches are really primitive termites and, like termites, are quite social, although not nearly as complexly social (eusocial with caste systems) as termites. In fact, entomologists have performed experiments where they have raised cockroaches in isolation and found that they were less likely to explore or even to leave their bases. They were slower eaters and took longer to identify receptive females, proving how important sociality is for them.

This species, the Redhead Black Velvet roach, is found in our open grassland and, in the dry season like now, they congregate in groups under rocks. Lift almost any rock up on Goudkoppies flats in August and there is a good chance you will find a group of males (with wings), females (without) and nymphs (babies that look like smaller females) in all growth stages. Males are attracted to females by pheromones that the female leaves as a trace on the ground, which the male follows up on. When he finds her, he stridulates and displays until she allows him to mate. Once mated, the female produces an egg sack with eggs inside within her body, and the whole egg sack comes out once formed. She will drop the sack in an appropriately secret place. Once the eggs hatch, the nymphs will take care of themselves.

Oh! And on the subject of how difficult it is to kill a cockroach: Experiments have found that the decapitated body of a cockroach can survive for many hours and still possess the ability to run away and steer. A decapitated head can still move its antennae and, if nourished, can stay alive even longer than a few hours!!!

There's a bunch of special plants and trees that flowered during that awkward time between winter and spring and this one is endemic to the Drakensberg mountain range of which our part is called the Mpumalanga escarpment. It is the hardy, fynbos-type shrub that grows in colonies in our open grasslands called a Drakensberg Heath, Erica drakensbergensis. The flowers are striking but one must get up close because of their small size. The flower is a white bell that hangs down with a dark maroon pistil and purple stamens. Beautiful! 

Of the over 850 species of heath, 690 are endemic with most of those occurring in the fynbos in the Western Cape. And only there. In fact, Erica is the largest genus of plants in the fynbos biome. Here on the estate, I have so far identified eight species with a potential few more to come. The Heath family, Ericaceae, also includes the Blueberries and Blackberries of the world. Here in Finsbury, we have the African Blueberry, Vaccinum exul, which fills up with fruit-shop quality blueberries at the end of summer each year. The flower of the Blueberry looks the same as the Drakensberg Heath's but is a little larger. The leaves, though, are much larger like a normal plant, whereas the heaths all have tiny, scaled leaves.

This is a Barbeton Groundsel, Senecio barbetonicus, growing on a narrow ledge high up beside the (usually) dry waterfall at the end of the path that leads to, and beyond, the mountain hatchery near Morrin Pools. It is a member of the Daisy family and the Senecio genus has a few species that are succulent. At least to a degree. 

It is a plant that I had encountered only once before, what? A good eight years or more ago, nearby, on an adventure with a, then, young Fraser Moore from Rock Solid (unit 22). Alas, it was not in bloom then.... and it wasn't easy to get there again. So I didn't try ;) And so I only had photographs of the plant and not the flower in my files. 

 I recently climbed up to this ledge and found a bunch of beautiful specimens. I returned before the middle of August when they were due to be flowering and they were, as pictured above.  They are not very common here because they are not frost resistant and so only occur where it is absent. And, the lowest point in Finsbury is right at the top of the elevation tolerance of the plant.

Anyway, as you can see, they are succulents with thick, finger-like leaves that point elegantly upwards and are popular in succulent gardens. They can be potted in small pots, big pots, in rockeries or just in the garden. You should find them on any succulent website where good advice is given. Nice find.

This is the office's pair of Cape Rock Trush, Monticola rupestris, foraging on the lawn in the central area of the estate. I say "the office's pair" because they are violently territorial with the male aggressively evicting other males and even other bird species. The male sits atop a vantage point and calls incessantly, with a rather pleasant jumble of whistles that doesn't sound too different than the Southern Olive Thrush most Joburgers know so well, to warn intruders off. All this means that it's probably the same pair we see around here all the time since they are sedentary and will only move to lower altitudes temorarily at the very coldest time of winter. 

The scientific name is very appropriate: Monticola = (L) Mountain Dweller; rupestris = (L) Lives on cliffs or rocks. They are endemic to South Africa, including Swaziland, and occur in rocky, mountainous areas from the Western Cape up along the eastern side of South Africa to the Limpopo province. Because these birds tame quite easily towards humans and enjoy the habitat they create, this monogomous pair probably nest on a ledge on one of the buildings here at central. But they normally nest on ledges on cliffs, building a scraggly cup-shaped nest lined with fine roots, a nest they often use year after year if not disturbed.

The three or so chicks hatch after two weeks of incubation by their mother and are fed a variety of arthropods like insects, spiders, millipedes, centipedes, lots of caterpillars and worms and even small frogs and lizards by both parents until they fledge in just over two weeks. Thereafter, they remain close to the nest for a further ten days or so and are tutored and cared for by both parents before being chased off to fend for themselves. 

It doesn't always go that smoothly, though, because these birds are one of the species that is targeted by the common summer visitor, the Red-chested Cuckoo or Piet-my-vrou. The pair of cuckoos continually attempt to access the nest and get violently chased off but are relentless! The male cuckoo ultimately attracts the vigilant Rock Thrushes away and all it takes is five seconds for the female cuckoo to land in the nest, push an egg out and lay one in its place. Five seconds and then she's off!

The cuckoo chick hatches together with the rock thrush chicks and then astonishing thing happens: Quite innocently. The cuckoo chick develops an incredible itch on the top of its back, out of reach. And as it stretches out with its tiny wings to try to reach the itch, it evicts the rock thrush chicks and unlaid eggs from the nest and off the ledge! The rock thrush parents then raise the remaining chick as their own.  

Wow, atta boy! This is our big dominant male leopard called the Spekboom Male by our neighbours at Mount Anderson Ranch. Recognisable by his asian eyes, he is young, hasn't developed a dewlap yet but he seems to have established himself on our property and our neighbours north and west according to the data collected from the many camera traps set up by the MTPA each year. Looking at the condition of his ears, it looks like he has no respect for electric fencing and therefore probably ranges even further west. When male leopards, with their large territorial ranges, range into unprotected areas they are vulnerable to being shot by landowners or killed on the roads by vehicles, the biggest cause of death in these semi-urban areas.

This photo was taken by the camera trap that is set up, facing south, on the northern side of K24, at five past nine in the morning on the twenty-sixth of August. I left the camera there for six weeks from the middle of September to the end of August and, wow, that little weir is busy! With animals much more than flyfishers! Remember the camera is fixed in position and only takes a photograph if something walks within the sensor's range. In that time the camera spotted eight visits by anglers. 

Animals were a different story: There were 33 visits of different duration (the camera keeps taking photos while the animal stays in its range while grazing or browsing, lying down and then getting up etc) and different Rams and ewes, some alone and some with lambs, of Bushbuck; 28 visits by various groupings of Warthog; 8 visits by Eland, usually at night for long periods; five visits by Leopard, at least one female and this male three times; 3 visits by a troop of Baboons passing through while foraging; 3 visits by Kudu, two lone males on different occasions and a breeding herd that spent a night there; 2 Civets passing by the camera about a week apart; 2 visits by a sounder of Bushpigs, both late at night; 2 visits by Porcupine, once a pair and once a large, solitary male; 1 visit by a Common Duiker ewe; and 1 visit by a Slender Mongoose! 

And that's only in the little spot within the range of the camera! Pretty cool stuff!

That's it for August and the beginning of September. Spring is in the air and the rains are on the way. Life is about to explode into a cacophony of colour and noise... 

WINTER 2022

 WINTER 2022

What a pleasant winter we have had here in the mountains! Usually every winter seems to get colder as I get older but this winter was very bearable. I only made a fire in my house when I had guests. We had three weeks of severe frost from the fist of June  till a week before the end of the month but that was about it. Well, we have had a few cold snaps since then... It was also rather moist, with many overcast days and three days of rain over J-J-June and July, albeit with only 16mm falling over the central area in all those times. 

So the vegetation is very green for this time of the year but, as you can see in the photo above of SPK 11, also lots of browns, oranges and reds. Try sitting down, facing the cliffs, with a pair of binocuars, at SPK 11 and you can spend a long time admiring the myriad cremnophytes (cliff-loving plants) attached to those cliffs. There's also a nest site for Giant Kingfishers and one for a pair of Red-winged Starlings and the Hadedas roost in the Flute Cape Willow tree on the left side. If you go there really early in the morning you may get a chance to flush them, which is quite satisfying after how often they wake us up!

The river levels are also still quite high for this time of the year. It's already August and the water is still running over the W6 monkey bridge, even though the southern part of the estate got a lower rainfall this previous season than average. I am, though, hoping for another rainy season like the last one. Where the rain started in springtime and fell gently right through the rainy season, synchronising with the growing time of the plants. It is the most productive way and is supposed to be the norm but, until last year, it seemed like the rains were coming later and later each year. 

Even though winter is supposed to be the least active, wildlife-wise, I still got to see lots of interesting stuff here at Finsbury. Check some of them out below: 

I mean, look at this foliose lichen I found on the southern side of a cluster of huge boulders just below the summit of Little Joker koppie right at the end of July, when it should be driest. It was so moist that the mosses were swollen and wet to the touch. This foliose lichen is called Rock-shield Lichen and it is from the genus Xanthoparmelia. And, as you can see, the lichens are "fruiting" which is something they normally do in the wettest times of the year. The brown discs are the apothecia, where the reproductive spores of the fungal part of the lichen are produced. Rain drops hitting these concave discs are supposed to spray the spores away for dispersal. 

I've only managed to photograph and identify fourteen species of lichen on the estate so far but, with one-thousand-seven-hundred species of lichen so far described for South Africa and an estimated thousand more, these strange organisms are another world all to themselves! Check back at my posts from Jolly Season 2018; May 2019; January 2020; and January 2021 to learn more about some of the remarkable lichens found here on the estate.

This is a Grassveld Sheepsdaisy or Geelblombos, Phymaspermum acerosum (which means: Swollen seeds, needle-like leaves). I mentioned in my last blog that these and the Wilms' Paperflower (see previous blog) were very dominant during autumn this year. The Sheepsdaisies are bright yellow when in bloom and there were fields of them during autumn this year. They have all now gone brown as the flowers die and the seeds develop but there have been a few early mornings where they have been white like the one above from the frost, making them quite beautiful again. 

This bush also makes a fine garden subject. Just one individual at the rear of the bed, against the wall, will make a huge difference in autumn when all else is beginning to fade. I do remember a few years back when Liz Steyn, from Finsbury House (unit 23), sprinkled the dry seeds of the Sheepsdaisy on a bare patch of hard ground that had been thrown over a ditch containing building rubble and the following season it was covered in them, showing how readily the seeds germinate. 

 

I've had quite a time recently with spiders. This chap, a Long-jawed Ground spider, Austrachelas bergii, belongs to a genus comprising nineteen rather rare species that are endemic to South Africa and of which there are very few photographs available (making this photo quite a prize according to the Spider group of Southern Africa). It is a medium sized spider that is free-living (does not use a web to catch prey), running around on the ground, during the day, in search of its preferred prey, ants. Once it has achieved its quota of prey it will retreat to it's nest, a woven, silken bag hidden among the stones, to rest overnight. 

The spider belongs to the Gallieniellidae, a small family of mostly ant-eating spiders that was thought to be endemic to Madagascar but has since been found in Southern and Eastern Africa and in Australasia. All ants are protected by the presence of formic acid within their bodies which will make any animal that regularly eats them "specialised predators" who have evolved physiological ways to process the acid during digestion. It would be interesting to see the interaction between this spider and an African Queenless ant (see blogs of "The jolly season 2018; and March 2020) which is huge with a mighty sting! I say this because the massive jaws on this spider seem like overkill for a spider that eats ants unless they catch and kill the African Queenless ant and, unfortunately, because of the rarety of the spider group, there is very little information available for them and their behaviour.

This is another spider that I encountered during the winter but this one was in my house! Besides the colour and the fact that it is hairier, it is a similar size to the above Long-jawed Ground spider, and it has long, black jaws and eight eyes in two rows just like the spider featured above. They both also construct silken sacks into which they retreat when resting. This here is a Sac Spider from the Cheiracanthium genus, probably C. lawrencei, and the two spiders featured in this post were originally classified as belonging to the same family because of these similarities but since the age of genetic research, have been allocated to different families because, genetically, they are quite different. 

One very notable difference is the venom that the two spiders carry: The Long-jawed Ground spider has a rather mild venom compared to the Sac spider. The Sac spider, with a more potent venom, is also behaviorally different in that it is very aggressive and it takes the least bit of provocation before it will bite. The Sac spider is definitely responsible for the great majority of reported spider bites in South Africa and so, is one of the four groups of medically important spiders occurring here, although it certainly is the least dangerous of them all. 

There were thirty five recorded spider bite cases in South Africa over a recent ten year period and they were represented by all four groups of medically important spiders in South Africa. They are the Button spiders from the Latrodectus genus (four of those thirty-five reported cases), and are the only members with a nerve-attacking venom; the Violin spider from the Loxosceles genus (eleven of those cases); the Six-eyed Crab spiders from the Sicarius genus (two of those cases); and then the Sac spiders which were responsible for eighteen of those reported cases. The latter species all carry a cell-destroying venom that will turn the site of the bite into a necrotic lesion within a few days from which a secondary infection may erupt. Of course, this is the worst case scenario. As with snakes, venom is an expensive process to make and so the biter (be it a spider or a snake) tends to be reluctant to use more than is necessary so, if the victim is not a severe threat to the biter, the biter will inject less venom (sometimes even no venom, resulting in a dry bite) whereas, if the victim is rather an aggressor, the biter will inject a full dose of venom. 

The least studied of the above dangerous spiders is the Six-eyed Crab spider, from the Sicarius (which means "assasin' in latin) genus because they dwell in caves in deserts and so do not really come into contact with people and so are less of a worry. The venom is cell-destroying but also thins the blood (like the venom of a Boomslang and Twig Snake) and a small dose killed a rabbit in five hours! Quicker than all the others, suggesting that the Six-eyed Crab Spider, a close relative to the Recluse spider in North America, is possibly the most venomous on the planet! I am lucky enough to have had a chance to photograph these spiders when I found a bunch of them in a cave in the middle of the Namib desert more than twenty years ago (and not to have got bitten!). I will make an effort to try and recover the slides.  

What a stunning tree! It's a Brittlewood or a Common Wild Alder, Nuxia congesta, in full bloom while festooned with Old Man's Beard lichens hanging randomly from the branches. This beautiful individual resides on the forest edge, high up above the Steenkamps' southern waterfall, close to our boundary with Emoyeni and the presence of so many lichens in the area is an indicator of clean, unpolluted air.

It is a frost-resistant winter flowering tree that reaches three to five meters in height and is a super garden subject, especially smaller gardens. The abundant inflorescences of small cream flowers are very showy and exude a lovely perfumed scent. As you can see, the tree has a very artistic manner of growth and it is also a fast growing tree that will get you about seventy centimeters per year. If that's not enough, then add the fact that it does not have an invasive root system which makes it suitable to plant near pathways and walls without lifting them later on. This feature also makes it a great candidate for large pots although it also happens to be a sought after bonsai subject!

I was clearing out a bunch of pesky young Black Wattle trees on the hill between Tranquility (unit 15) and Jackpot Cottage (unit 16) when I dislodged and then nearly trod on this remarkable insect. It's a full-grown, twenty centimeters long (maybe thirty with legs outstretched), Giant Stick insect, Bactricia bituberculata, with her pair of tubercles, referred to in the specific name, clearly visible in the inset photo as a pair of horns. I have found a male here before and he was very much slimmer, a bit shorter and his little "horns" were sharp and pointed forward like a Mountain Reedbuck ram. He also had a pair of claspers, like a male Dragonfly, at the end of his abdomen to clasp the female during mating.

Stick insects belong to the primitive order of insects called the Phasmida (Old Greek for phantom / ghost - because they appear to be plants but are actually animals) and they are generally flightless, nocturnal vegetarians. They are primitive insects and so have an incomplete metamorphosis, which means that the life cycle comprises an egg, nymph, then adult (a complete metamorphosis has a life cycle comprising an egg, larva, pupa, then adult). They are gentle giants and certainly amongst the most helpless of insects who, unfortunately for them, are highly prized as food by many predators, particularly birds. But, by spending the day looking just like a stick and feeding at night, these perfectly camouflaged insects are usually only discovered by accident, like the way I found it. And then if they are disturbed, they usually play dead, well, not really. Insects are not intelligent enough to think about these things (apparently) so when they play dead (called thanatosis), they actually incur a cataleptic fit. This is when the victim temporarily seizes up with muscles rigid while losing contact with its environment, making it look even more like a rigid twig. If this does not convince the potential predator the Stick Insect may start to bleed foul-tasting haemolymph from it's joints as a defense. But that's about it for this species, before it becomes dinner. There's a species I know from the Lowveld (which should occur here too) in the Bactrododema genus that has a pair of cryptic wings attached to its thorax (like most insects). It doesn't fly with these wings but if the thanatosis doesn't work, it suddenly flashes these wings, which have big eyes painted on them (like many moths), wide open with a flourish and this usually scares the predator away. 

The nymph hatches from its egg, looking just like a miniature adult, and immediately begins feeding, chewing up leaves from trees and bushes. Once it begins to grow, it must shed its skin, a laborious process, and emerge with its new larger skin before it continues to graze. The female on my hand here would have undergone five or six of these processes before she was an adult and was then mated with to reach the egg-laying stage for the final three months of the season.

There is absolutely no parental care involved with Stick Insects. It's as if the female doesn't even know that she is laying eggs when she lays one per night for the three month period. She simple drops an egg randomly as she is munching on a leaf with no further worry about where it lands or anything regarding the future of the offspring. The eggs are also extremely well camouflaged, though, resembling a plant seed to a tee.  I found this female at the beginning of June so I'm sure she was in the late stages of her life when we found each other. Once the female has laid all her eggs, she dies.

These insects make very popular pets with more than 300 species being tamed in the past, to as far back as the Han Dynasty in China around 200AD! The most common pet, and laboratory specimens, are the Indian Stick Insect, Carausius morosus, which get to about ten centimeters long and are very fond of lettuce. They are normally kept in a small bird or rodent cage. An odd but very gentle pet indeed!       

Anyone who has been here over the winter could not have failed to notice the little purple bushes all over the estate and entrance road, especially in dry, rocky places. It is a Wild Aster, Felicia filifolia, and, although it normally blooms copiously, this season it has been unforgetful! I found this individual up on the Miner's cottage road (you can see the soccer field in the valley far below) and chose it to photograph because of the lovely view but there were much fuller bushes elsewhere on the estate. Felicia = Felix (L) Cheerful, alluding to the attractive splash of colour (or maybe after a German named Felix, I prefer the former); filifolia = (L) fine leaves. 

The little mauve daisies, with a yellow center, are so crowded on the bush, that the dark green, needle-like leaves are barely visible and that just creates this splash of colour right through winter. Not to mention the beautiful aroma that accompanies it. Strangely, though, all the literature I can find on them suggest that they flower at spring time but I have always known them to flower in mid-winter here at Finsbury. The flowers also persist for a long time, the whole of June and July for most the bushes here. The tufts of seeds produced after the flowers are also very attractive. Like soft, puffy flower heads.

It will remain a mystery to me why these bushes are not planted in everyone's gardens in this country. The bush is indigenous to both the summer and winter rainfall regions, which means it is supposed to grow wherever you are. It is frost resistant and requires very little care. Rainfall in your region should be enough for them so they don't even need to be watered! They prefer full sun but can still thrive in semi-shade, although they will produce more leaves and less flowers there. The attractive dark green leaves make it handsome even when it is not in flower. It also responds well to pruning, so can be shaped. In fact, I can only find one negative thing relating to this bush and that is that it is poisonous to sheep. So if you don't keep sheep, you should plant some in your garden.

Finsbury has just purchased a teleconverter for my little camera and already I can see an improvement to the photos of distant things like birds (it must have been my constant reference to my camera being bad at bird photography in my posts...). This is a very common bird around the estate and it is sedentary, which means it stays here right throughout the year. No migrating, even locally (to lower altitudes close by) like many of our "sedentary" birds do because our winters can be very cold. It is a male Cape Weaver, Ploceus capensis, and is plain, bright yellow right now. Very soon, as spring arrives, he will get a dark chestnut wash over his face as he enters his breeding phase. The female is much paler with a white belly and dark eyes (very rarely light eyes) often seen together, in groups, with males.

When the breeding season starts, a bunch of males will each build a nest in a colony, usually on the same tree and begin to make a racket to attract females to come and inspect the quality of his nest. This becomes a rather noisy affair and is easy to observe at Coch-Y-Bunddhu (unit 1) in the Flute Cape Willows on the edge of K32. The thing that creates such a commotion is the fact that each male establishes a territory directly around his nest and aggressively defends this with displays and attacking intruders. You can imagine the cacophony!

If he can display handsomely enough, a female may be attracted to his nest where he will dance around singing while she enters the nest and inspects it by pulling at the walls and the floor, testing its strength. If she is not satisfied, she will depart and visit another male to inspect his handiwork. If this happens, the rejected male will often tear the nest down and rebuild, taking about a week. If she approves of the nest, then she will lie down in it, facing forward, looking out the door, before she flies out and invites copulation. Between then and egg-laying, the female will line the nest with fine grasses and her own down feathers while the male adds a tunnel to the entrance. Then she will lay three or so eggs and incubate and then brood the chicks while the male spends his nights in an adjacent non-breeding nest built for the purpose. Once the chicks begin to grow, she will also spend her nights in their non-breeding accommodation next door and before three weeks is up, the chicks are fledged and ready to leave the nest

The birds are catholic in their diet (which means they eat anything!) which includes diverse foodstuffs from crawling insect which are prised from their hiding places like Woodhoepoes do; to flying insects that are "hawked" like flycatchers do;  to licking nectar from flowers like sugarbirds do; to plucking seeds from grasses like Queleas do; to fruits picked off trees like Turacos do; to picking seeds off the ground like Canaries do; to catching grasshoppers like Shrikes do; and to picking spiders off their webs like sunbirds do! Wow! Can't go hungry with so many skills.

So I was walking along the edge of K33, the newly repaired dam on the northern Kliprots, when I noticed these pretty patterns an top of the stones and also on sticks in the shallow waters. I photographed it and found out that they are casings constructed by little worms that live in them when at rest. I returned and collected a rock and submerged it in water in an ice-cream container and took it home to study it. 

I managed to remove one of the little worms from its casing and magnified it fifty times under my little digital microscope and this is what I saw, a red worm about five millimeters long and half a millimeter or less wide. It's called a "Bloodworm" and it's not actually a worm but the larvae of a Non-biting Midge from the Chironomidae family of flies, closely related to mosquitoes or Biting Midges. They feed on nutrients and micro-organisms on the muddy bottom of waterbodies where there is very little oxygen available and so they contain Haemoglobin, a protein capable of storing oxygen. Haemoglobin is responsible for transporting oxygen in vertebrates and that is why our blood is red.

The following day I found this little pupa floating in the water of my ice-cream container. It measured about eight millimeters long. In a natural situation, the pupa develops within the case and when ready, swims to the surface of the water where it splits longwise and the adult emerges.

And because I kept the lid on the container, the following day I found this tiny adult, about two millimeters long, struggling to stay afloat. I removed it, allowed it to dry out and then managed to photograph it. It looks just like a tiny mosquito but without the biting mouthparts. Also, like mosquitos, I can tell this is a male because he has feathery antennae. Mosquitos males use these antennae, like many moths, to locate phermones released by the female, and then follow them until he finds her. This cannot be the case with Chironomid midges because the males, once emerged from their pupa, gather in swarms, like Mayflies do, and the females find these swarms and barrel into them. The first male that can hang on to her drops with her to the floor where they mate. She then flies off and when her eggs have developed, she drops them one by one into the water where they sink to the bottom and lie there until hatching. The newly hatched larvae float in the water and eat microorganisms and, only after the first moult, do they sink to the bottom, build their case, and become bottom feeders.

Most lakes, dams and streams are home to fifty to a hundred different species of Chironomid, making this family of midges the most abundant primary consumer in these waterbodies. Collectively, they harvest an enormous amount of energy from detritus in water, making them vitally important in aquatic ecosystems. And they occur all over the world. In fact, they are the largest permanent terrestrial species of animal found year-round in the antarctica!

As winter comes to a close, the days are becoming longer, quickly, as we approach springtime! We hope to see you all this spring. Please don't hesitate to ask me if you want me to guide you and your visitors on an amble, walk or hike here on the estate while you are here. You can email me before hand at jimmy@finsbury.co.za, or radio me when you are already here. See you then :)