SPRINGTIME 2023

 SPRINGTIME 2023

A very dry springtime has been had, but the estate is still lushly verdant, thanks to the 230mm rainfall that has fallen in nice, soaking episodes until now, the end of November. Bear in mind that our average rainfall over the estate, measured since 2010, is just north of 900mm per annum, so 230mm halfway through our wet season is not very good. So, although the estate is green and beautiful, the river levels are still quite low. 

Springtime, my favourite, is when our winter-greys are suddenly interupted by flashes of colour (see the Tulp below) and the million different greens begin to emerge. And the life! After the first decent rains, all the creepy crawlies have hatched, emerged from coccoons or woken up and are all very busy with their tasks. 

The cover photo is of a pair of Long-stem Bushlilies, Clivia caulescens, proudly inviting the sunbirds to enjoy their copious nectar, while carrying pollen from flower to flower in the Majubane gorge, not far from the waterfall. Once the flowers are pollinated, the ovary expands into the fruit that takes nine months to ripen fully. Then a bunch of animals like rodents, monkeys and birds will spread the seeds around after enjoying the thin layer of fruit enveloping them.

At the very first hint of spring, the plant that never fails to appear first is the Pallid Tulp, Moraea pallida, with its very long, slender leaves snaking out of the lawns around the office first, before the bright lemon-yellow flowers appear, almost like the spark that kicks springtime into gear. 

The Moraea genus is what is regarded as our African Irises because the flowers so resemble the flowers of the Irises from the northern hemisphere. The most notable difference between the two is that the Moraea have a bulb while the Iris have a woody rootstock. Our Moraea occur in fire-prone habitats like grasslands and fynbos and so the bulb has evolved so that fire only inflicts superficial damage. We do have an Iris-like plants here on the estate with a woody rootstock, the Forest Iris, but that occurs in the Dietes genus and grows in the forests where fire is not a threat. All three genera are closely related and reside in the same tribe within the Iris family.

It has never appeared, to me, that anything eats the plant, which makes sense because it is well-known that these plants are poisonous to domestic cattle. But this year, a porcupine, or more than likely a family of porcupines, decided that the bulb of this plant was a delicacy fit for the king of all porcupines! Over a period of about a week or so, almost every single Pallid Tulp was a stringy mess lying on the floor, beside a little excavation where its bulb used to be!

It may have been the same culprits that devoured the bulbs of the gladioli I was so looking forward to seeing bloom naturally in my garden.......Mmn, wondering if we should have porcupine roast for Christmas dinner...... ;)

Another really groovy thing about springtime is that all the snakes are really hungry after a long fast over the wintertime, and so are seen all over the place (in the bush, not the houses). Do remember though, that snakes don't hibernate in Southern Africa, they are just much less active during the winter. Mostly not actively looking for food, but still exiting their hiding places on warmer winter days to sun themselves.

This was a Cross-marked Sandsnake, Psammophis crucifer, trying to sun itself on the road near K33, before I came along. Being ectothermic (cold-blooded), they need to acquire a suitable temperature before they are optimally active. Once they have achieved this, then, in this case because these snakes are active in the daylight, the snake will begin its daily activities which could entail hunting or acquisition of a mate or, if female, a nesting site to lay eggs.

Sandsnakes are fast pursuit predators that actively find and then chase down their prey, which for the Cross-marked sandsnakes, is almost exclusively lizards although young, small snakes feed mainly on arthropods, from scorpions to grasshoppers to spiders. Larger individuals will also catch and eat other snakes, like Slugeaters. I have, on a few occasions, actually seen a close relative from the lowveld, a Stripe-bellied sandsnake, chase and catch Grassveld lizards which are extremely fast runners. It is truly amazing to see a snake, without legs, chase down a lizards with longs legs successfully. It is very fast!

You must admit, though, that, for a snake, this sandsnake has quite a cute face....

Gee, unlike the snake above, this monster is far from cute! What a terrifying last sight for whatever unfortunate prey was the last victim! This is a Kalahari Ferrari, Camel Spider or Sunspider, Solpugema hostilis, from the Solifugae order in the chelicerata class of arthropods (Insects are another class of arthropods), the same class that spiders and scorpions belong to. Interestingly, solifuge means: "seeking refuge from the sun"; and it so happens that some species run from shadow to shadow, often to your shadow, which makes them appear as if they want to attack! 

Although it resembles a spider, it is different in the fact that these have no silk glands and no venom glands. Their Pedipalps (the blurry limb that is almost touching the camera lens, and the one to the left of it) are also massive as compared to spiders, and so appear as an extra pair of legs, giving the appearance of a ten-legged spider.

And so, despite the horrifying appearance and the fact that they can inflict a painful bite with those massive jaws, these arachnids are harmless to us humans. We found this specimen up on the Spioenkop Mine walk with the Andersons from Kingfisher Lodge (those kids have got such sharp eyes!) Some species, like this one, are diurnal (active in the day), and many species, especially the huge orange ones from the lowveld, are nocturnal and attracted to the insects that are attracted to campfires and artificial lights. I have heard many a shrill scream emitted once contact is made with unsuspecting people!

When hunting, the Kalahari Ferrari runs across the open ground at an astounding speed, generally in a straight line until it runs into a prey animal (any arthropod that it can overpower). It then subdues the victim by standing on it and just begins to devour it by slashing those massive jaws! It eats almost as quickly as it runs!

While we're on arachnids that are not spiders, here's another two examples, one being a massive burden on the other! The poor host is a Harvestman, an arachnid. I featured Harvestmen in my blog of January 2021. This is what I shared there: "A Harvestman is an arachnid and although it looks just like a spider, it is only as closely related to spiders as a scorpion is. 

The biggest differences are: 

That its body parts are fused together so it looks as if it has only a single body segment with a single pair of raised eyes in the middle of this, while spiders have segmented bodies with three or four pairs of eyes on the front and / or sides of the cephalothorax; 

Spiders have booklungs, lungs that work like a concertina while Harvestmen have trachea like those found in insects; 

Unlike spiders, Harvestmen have no silk glands and therefore cannot produce silk; 

Harvestmen also have no venom glands that all but one family of spiders possess; 

and unlike spiders that are pure hunters, Harvestmen are omnivorous, eating insects and other invertebrates, plant material and fungi, which it bites and swallows, unlike spiders that liquify their prey outside of their bodies with enzymes and then consume the juices; 

Harvestmen also have glands in the joints of their legs that emit foul-tasting chemicals that they use as a defense. If this fails, as a last resort, they can even detach a leg which have a pace-maker-like organ at the joints causing the detached leg to twitch for as long as an hour after it has separated from the body, holding the attention of the predator while the Harvestman escapes. This is very much like what happens when a lizard loses its tail to a predator, but a harvestman must be more careful of this because it cannot regenerate it's legs like a lizard can with its tail. 

And finally, unlike spiders, Harvestmen males clean and protect the batch of eggs laid by the female after she has left. Depending on the time of the season, this could take from twenty days right up to six months."

The second type of arachnid in the photo are the numerous bright orange baby mites, or larvae, attached to the limbs of the Harvestman. Mites belonging to this large and cosmopolitan genus, Leptus, are parasitic as six-legged larvae and use a wide range of arthropods on which to feed. Most common hosts are arachnids like the Harvestman above. Mite larvae pierce the cuticle of the host and ingest hemolymph and other fluids via a piercing mouthpart, a stylostome, which acts as a drinking straw. After engorging, larvae drop off the host and transform into eight-legged nymphs and then adults. Both adults and nymphs are free-living predators of very, very small invertebrates.

(notice: In baby insects, those with a pupal stage are called LARVAE; those without a pupal stage are called NYMPHS. With these guys, the first stage, which only has six legs, is called the LARVAE. Then the next stage, after it drank its fill of body fluids and dropped off the host, is its NYMPH stage. Only after its next moult does it reach the adult stage.)

It sure is a dog-eat-dog world out there! 

Now, it doesn't look like it, but these two ant species are much more of a threat to us humans than the Kalahari Ferrari featured previously. They're both primitive ants belonging to the Ponerinae subfamily (the most primitive) of the Formicidae family (all the ants belong in a single family) in the Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps) order of insects.

In the first picture, the odd-looking, pock-marked ant is a Rugged Ringbum ant, Bothroponera pumicosa. Most ponerines, including the Rugged Ringbum (about 12-15mm long), live in very small colonies of up to a dozen individuals, though some, like the notorious Matabele ant from the lowveld, live in colonies numbering more than a thousand individuals. Ponerines do not have a queen but instead a dominant worker that is fertile. Remember, in all ants the workers are female but, in this case, the one that is stress-free will have certain physiological processes triggered that enable her to conceive. So, to remain the only one that is stress-free, she bullies her fellow workers constantly, never allowing their stress levels to drop to the point that they would become fertile too. A cold and crazy system, but it works. In fact, Wild Dogs are one of the mammals that do a similar thing. 

One thing all ponerines have in common is a painful sting, from the Peter's Smooth Ringbum, Streblognathis peetersi (up to 22mm long), that massive, shiny black ant we see so much of around here (second photograph), to the Matabele ants in the Lowveld (a mighty sting but still not as bad as the Streblo) to this Rugged Ringbum, who I have not yet been stung by. And I am not going to try, because I've heard that her sting is the worst of them all!

This little piggy went to market;

This little piggy stayed at home; 

This little piggy had roast beef; 

and this little piggy had none....

And where the little piggy is, that ran all the home, no one knows! Now this is a special blend of ugly and cute! Four little piglets, separated, accidently, from mommy by me and my motorbike between Morrin Pools and the Mountain Hatchery. When this age, they only have one overriding program: follow mother; follow mother; follow mother! When I saw the mother turn off the road and the babies continuing on straight, I stopped the bike, hoping they would reunite. But the piglets just ran on. Then they stopped. it's as if the program was altered to: Ignore danger and wait for mom. After riding past and getting this close-up, they ran up the hatchery road while I continued with my task. When I returned that way just ten minutes later, I found the mother on the road sniffing for tracks, just like a dog would. She was on the right track too, close to the hatchery road, so I hope she found them.

The piglets are born altricial (compare with precocial), which means they were blind and naked, and they had to spend the first two-plus weeks in a burrow, being fed and looked after by mom alone. Once their eyes had opened and they were able to run and keep up with mom, then they would leave the burrow and accompany mom on her daily routine, which is the stage I found them in here.

From here, once they gather a bit of strength, Ma will join up with the sounder (which she had left to birth, suckle, and get her piglets to this stage. On her own), which consists of her mother, sisters and or cousins and aunts, whoever still remains. The sounder breaks up and separates as it gets too big, but females know who's who in the zoo, in their relatively large home range.

The males, on the other hand, stay with their sisters after being abandoned by their mothers, as a sibling group. After they mature, the females may join with others from another home range and form a new sounder or go back to mom's sounder and carry on. The males will form a little bachelor group, usually two to four boys, related or not, and become best buddies as they leave the sibling group and enter the big, wide world, which is filled with danger and adventure. They will wrestle and wrastle with each other and establish their dominance within the group. After a year or more, the more dominant boy will become less and less social and a lot more aggressive. 

He will leave the group, the home range, and enter new ranges, his testes will grow to massive proportions, and he will become a breeding boar. Unfriendly and unliked. But he will get all the girls, if anybody likes it or not. Well, not really, because he will have to battle it out with boars with similar intent. A tuff life lies ahead of him if he wants to breed. Anyway, woe betide any predator that tries to mess with him! Big boar pigs have an extreme attitude towards enemies, and most of those enemies, including adult leopards, avoid them. 

The other boars will also become less friendly and more aggressive. And ultimately solitary, hoping the big guy dies sooner rather than later, so they have a chance to take over. They will venture into neighbouring home ranges and try their luck.

From a little piglet to a big, bad boar. Who's going to make the nursery rhyme better? 

Oh shem. This little Common Waxbill, Estrilda astrild, decided to fly through the office, instead of around it like the rest of its flock. Unfortunately for it, though, was that there was glass covering the window and so, well, he is lucky to get away with just a headache. For me, it was an opportunity to get to see one of these shy birds up close and appreciate its beauty.

Like all waxbills, the beak has a sheen that makes it appear that it is made of wax, giving the group the name. The red bill in this species is striking, together with the bright red spectacles. The "common" part of the name comes from the fact that this is the most widespread species of the group. They also gather in the largest concentrations of all the nine species occurring in the Southern African region.

Common waxbills are usually encountered in groups of about a dozen here on the estate, flying, as a group, from bush to bush, from which they jump to the ground in search of grass seeds, their staple diet as adults. They are completely sedentary, which means they remain right here throughout the year, even the coldest parts of winter. You will notice that the majority of the bird species I have featured on my publications may be sedentary, but they usually include seasonal movements to lower-lying areas. Like from here to Nelspruit during the coldest two months of the year. But these chaps will tough it out through the coldest months. Mainly because their staple diet, grass seeds, are still as easy to find in the cold as they are in the hot. Insects, on the other hand, being the staple for the majority of birds featured, are very difficult to find in the cold because they are not active and, therefore, hide away.

Although these birds are prolific, they are kept in check by a brood parasite, the Pin-tailed Whydah, featured in my blog of February 2020. The whydahs are also seed eaters that reside in large groups. After an elaborate mating ritual, the gravid female Whydah, who lays about twenty eggs per season, locates the nest of the waxbills. She then surreptitiously slips in when the parents are not around, quickly breaks open and eats the contents of one of the waxbill eggs, removes the shell and then lays her own egg as a replacement for the missing Waxbill egg, and then leaves the area having nothing further to do with her offspring. The Whydah egg hatches, and unlike many other brood parasites like cuckoos for example, the chick does not kill the remaining Waxbill chicks but grows up together with them, quickly learning how to copy the begging behavior of the Waxbill chicks. Once the chicks have fledged, the Whydah chick spends about a week with its surrogate family and then suddenly leaves and finds a flock of its own kind to stay with.

This is a photo of an African Giant Water Bug, Lethocerus cordofanus, taken by Mike Beaumont of Coch-Y-Bunddhu (unit 1), which is the perfect place to find one of these, with the beautiful weir, K32, right outside the house. This species is about sixty millimeters long while some new world species reach over one hundred and twenty millimeters, making them the largest bugs (Hemiptera order) and even match the size, but not weight, of the largest beetles.

They are voracious predators of aquatic invertebrates and even small fish and frogs. They wait, under the water's surface, in ambush for prey to approach them. They then grab the prey with their powerful forelegs, unfold their robust rostrum (sharp, piercing, hypodermic-like mouthparts), stab the victim and inject a venomous saliva that contains enzymes, and suck out the resulting liquified insides. The piercing rostrum will also be used in self-defense, so do not handle them. The bite is apparently very, very painful for up to five hours, but not of medical importance.

The roles of the sexes are also quite different from most insects with the male being sought out by the female, who then mates with him. Once she is ready to lay her eggs, the female lays them above the water line and leaves the area. The male then guards the eggs from predators and, when the eggs threaten to desiccate, he brings water and hydrates them, caring for them until they hatch. 

Is this a bee? Nope. It is a Bee Fly Hover Fly, a fly that mimics a bee, which offers a certain amount of protection. The quickest way to tell them apart is the very obvious single pair of wings in the flies as opposed to a double pair of wings in bees and all other flying insects, and the clubbed antennae that stick out the front of their faces. 

These Hover Flies from the Syrphidae family are not preferred pollinators because they are not attracted to the flowers for the nectar. Instead, they are there to mop up the pollen grains and so are, therefore, predators of flowers. although some grains still adhere to them, and they still pollinate other individual flowers as they get to them. Here you can see the fly enjoying the pollen grain adhering to the anthers of a striking St. John's Wart flower from a Curry bush, Hypericum revolutum. 

They make up for this bad behaviour though, because, like ladybird beetles, these flies also lay their eggs on plants that are infested by aphids, and the slow-moving, slug-like larvae hatch and eat these plant pests by the hundreds, so, over-all, the Syrphid fly is a gardener's friend. 

 

I was creeping through the gloomy forest vegetation in the gorge of the Upper Majubane, not too far from the waterfall, when I saw a single shaft of light beam through the canopy and land directly on a single flower of a Lydenburg Vygie, Delosperma lydenburgense, a special vygie only found in our area. It appeared as if the flower was generating the light, and as I approached it, a little butterfly, a blue of some sorts (still to be identified), alighted on the flower. Clearly, I was not the only one attracted to this sudden glow of purple in the gloom! A beautiful experience!

This is another photo sent to me by Dave DeVos from "The Croft's" (unit 19). A stunning picture of a female African Finfoot, Podica senegalensis, with her neck perfectly reflected in the water. This species is listed as vulnerable (VU) on the SANBI Red List because it has a sporadic and limited distribution and its habitat, flowing rivers with overhanging vegetation, is being destroyed by human habitation. It is a great spot for any birder because, even where it does occur, like here, it is hardly ever spotted, it is so shy and secretive.

Last season was the first time I had ever spotted chicks, two of them with mom, on the Steenkamps River near S3. I was overjoyed because the chicks even called to their mother after I had accidentally separated them, and I had never heard that sound before. Recently, when the rivers were still quite low, I got to see another mother and her two chicks cross the road in front of me at one of the crossings on the Kliprots river between Pebble Creek and Kliprots Creek (units 25 and 24). Very exciting to see them breeding comfortably on the estate! 

Oh man, the lichens in this place are mind-blowing! This is a fruiticose lichen commonly called Cartilage lichen, Ramalina celastri, and it is common in the heavily shaded riparian forests on the estate. I have said much about lichens in previous blogs and there is still much to explore. It is something I would like to get to know more about, so I have extended a dead-end path, in the forest between Pebble Creek and Kliprots Creek, that leads up into Bushpig Alley, so that it returns to the road. 

The circular route, which is only about a half a kilometer long is a pleasant promenade through thick riparian and new forest, creating dappled shade that is perfect, with our clean air, for the formation of lichen forests where, as you see above, one can find multiple species crowded amongst each other. There are also cliff faces with crustose and leprose lichens competing for space on, what would otherwise be, uninhabitable surfaces. Enquire when you see me, and I will explain the way. Or I can take you on the Lichen Trail. Just let me know.

It's the JOLLY SEASON now, so let's get out there into the mountains, the gorges, and along the rivers! There is much to see. Much to experience and many fish to catch!

 

WINTER 2023

 WINTER 2023

Winter is over, and what a strange one it was. It was quite mild, even considering the atypical snowfall. It was also the wettest winter since I have been here on the estate, with just under 10mm falling in June, and between 27mm (Majubane) and 44mm (Central) falling in July, and a single 5mm rainy day in August. But between these showers we experienced many overcast days. The end of July also marked the end of the 22/23 rainy season. We had an above-average rainfall with an average of 1008mm precipitation over the estate (the average over the last eleven years is 910mm/annum). That ranged from 1136mm over the central area of the estate, 1070mm in the north, 1024mm in the east, 949mm over the western part of the estate and, the lowest, 864mm over the southern part of the estate.

The highlight, of course, was the 12,5 centimeters of snow that fell over our mountains on the 10th of July! The photo above shows Mount Anderson (left) and the watershed that runs south of it, including Mount Formosa, with the puffy cloud over its peak, covered in snow! What fun it was! I think it was only the second time in Finsbury's history that it snowed.

Besides the excitement of the snowfall, there was much else that provided me with entertainment in the usually dull winter months. Below are some of those that I managed to photograph:

If you refer back to my EARLY SPRINGTIME blog posted on September 28 2021, I featured a little blurb on a Grass Aloe that I had photographed. Well, that specimen was a late-blooming Heath Grass Aloe, Aloe chortolirioides, as I had suspected. Afterwards, in the blog, I mentioned how I received an email from one of the Mpumalanga Parks' botanists, asking if I had encountered the rare, near-endemic (meaning it only occurs in a very small area) Mount Anderson Grass Aloe on the estate, to which my reply was in the negative. Mainly because the known Mount Anderson Grass Aloes Occured on the east-facing cliffs below Haartebeesvlakte, which is at 1700masl or less. 

Well, this is a photograph of the near endemic Mount Anderson Grass Aloe, Aloe andersonii, taken by Louise Twiggs from "The Crofts", unit 19, some time ago. She had posted her photos on iNaturalist and it was duly identified as the Heath Grass Aloe (an easy mistake to make from a photo, since the altitude and situation of the plant supported the Heath Grass Aloe). Then, being a very accomplished watercolour artist, Louise decided to paint the Aloe (check out some of her stuff on www.louisetwiggs.co.za). While in this process, a friend and fellow aloe lover, identified it as the rare Mount Anderson Grass Aloe and had this confirmed by Ernst Van Jaarsveld himself, the SANBI botanist that described the aloe only as recently as 2014!

Since this delightful discovery, I have scrutinised my grass aloe photos and found that I too, have mistaken the Mount Anderson Grass Aloe for the more common Heath Grass Aloe before. Now that I have encountered both species, it is easier to tell them apart, so I won't be making the same mistake again. The Heath Grass Aloe has much slimmer, longer leaves than the Mount Anderson one, and, importantly, ten or more white, papery bracts on the peduncle (stem holding the flowers), as opposed to only six on the Mount Anderson Grass Aloe

So that's another near endemic found only on Mount Anderson and immediate surrounds. I think that makes it three, including the Mount Anderson Everlasting, found only between Mt Anderson and Mt Formosa (refer blog of August 2020); and the Staerkers Disa, found only on the summit of Mt Anderson (refer to my blog: New Orchid Species, posted on Sunday 19 February 2017). Exciting stuff, thanks Louise!  

I was going through my files recently (a sensible activity when it is very cold out) and opened the file of as-yet-unidentified moths that I have photographed here on the estate, a large file indeed! Large because there are over seven thousand species of moth so far described in Southern Africa, and a big part of those occur here at Finsbury in these open grassland, riparian bush and forest biomes. When I succeeded in narrowing the above moth down to the Emperor moth family, Saturniidae, I paged through the file I have of caterpillars and cross-checked those adults, on iNaturalist, with this moth, and Viola! Got a match and got it confirmed. I love it when that happens, having both pictures, taken here on the estate, of the larva and adult of a moth or butterfly species. Because, if you think about it, if there are seven thousand species of moth in Southern Africa, then it would be the same as having to learn fourteen thousand different search images to cover the identification of all the species (since the larva and adult look so different to each other). To make it even more mind-boggling, all of those species have multiple instars as a caterpillar (when they shed their skins as they grow), where the majority, of those species, take on a completely different appearance in their following instars. So, in this instance, in the caterpillar stage, which has five instars, this individual caterpillar will look like five different caterpillars before it pupates and comes out as the adult moth!

These are the caterpillar (larva) and moth (adult) of the Cabbage Tree Emperor moth, Bunnaea alcinoe, and the photos do not do their size justice. The bold and dazzling caterpillar is a whopping seven centimeters long and one-and-a-half centimeters thick! It's actually heavy in one's hand. The moth is also enormous, with a wingspan of sixteen centimeters, very hard to miss when attracted to your artificial lights at night. The moth in the photo is clearly that of a male because of his spectacular golden antennae that are brush-like (check my spieel on Lepidopteran antennae in my blog of December 2019), which means he is still small compared to the female, who almost doubles his size.

The larva hatches from its egg that has been glued to a leaf on its host tree, in this case a Common Cabbage tree, Cussonia spicata, like the massive one, up against the cliff between K23 and K24, that Lone Tree cottage (unit 3) is named after. The larva consumes massive amounts of cabbage tree foliage during its five instars, which take well over two months to complete, before constructing a silken cocoon around itself and entering its pupal stage. If this is in the late spring or summer months, then before three weeks is up, the adult moth emerges from the cocoon, and with completely undeveloped mouthparts, only has three to four days to find a mate and breed before it dies of starvation.

If it is a male like this one, it uses its antennae, which are extremely sensitive, to pick up pheromones that are emitted by a female as far as two kilometers away! Once alerted to the smells of a female, the moth zigzags into the wind on the path of the female until, hopefully, he finds her. I say hopefully because the biggest threat this moth faces in the darkness when it is active, is its life-long, mortal enemy, the insectivorous bat!

Now, if you go back to my blog of NOVEMBER and DECEMBER 2020, I featured an article on a Tussock moth and mentioned how they can hear when a bat is homing in on them with echolocation and then take evasive action. I also mentioned that there are moths that can actually produce clicking sounds similar to those emitted by bats during echolocation, and thus confuse the bats. Well, this moth, the Cabbage-tree Emperor, has gazillions of minute, overlapping scales with pitted surfaces that absorb the soundwaves emitted by bats, acoustically camouflaging itself from discovery. Extremely useful for such a large moth.

I found this caterpillar, resting with at least a dozen buddies, in the cold, on a Common Waxberry tree on the Razorback road in the middle of winter. Clutched to the leaves and branches. Like the Cabbage Tree Emperor caterpillar and moth above, it is also from the Emperor moth family, with a caterpillar just as massive.

Now, normally, a caterpillar hatches from the egg and eats and grows until it enters its pupal stage, and then emerges as an adult. This cycle is usually completed several times during a single growing period (season), allowing the species to produce a few generations per season. Usually, the final generation of the season will enter a period of diapause within the pupal stage, allowing it to overwinter within the safety of the cocoon or pupal casing. Then, when the temperature increases, and or the daylight hours increase, the adult insect will emerge and continue with the cycles for another season. Sometimes the timing is not as perfect as that, and an underdeveloped caterpillar may have to enter a period of diapause before the pupal stage if the season changes before it has a chance. This must have been the case with these caterpillars.

The disadvantage of this situation is that the caterpillar is not protected as well as it would have been had it been within the cocoon enclosure (mud, in this case), and a hungry predator may just find it... If I was surviving in the wilderness and I encountered these caterpillars, I would have scoffed them down and been very happy with myself. Firstly, they are the caterpillars of the Emperor moth Gonimbrasia bubo, very closely related to the Mopane worm, G. belina, meaning they are most likely good and edible, although I would cook them to be sure. Secondly, they are huge! There's lots of yummy nutrients to be had from that massive body. There were at least a dozen of them hiding amongst the leaves of the tree, surely enough to be an entire meal on their own. 

This is a Finger-net Caddisfly in the Philopotamidae family in the Trichoptera (hairy wings) order of insects. Together with the Lepidoptera, butterflies and moths, and an extinct order, they form a superorder with a common ancestor. One of the shared characteristics is the presence of dense hairs on the wings, modified as scales in butterflies and moths. This species, in the Chimarra genus, is only a half a centimeter long but pretty common, so it is easily overlooked. 

Like butterflies, they are active during the day and can be seen doing a little walk-dance in a figure eight pattern on the substrate. Very busy little things. Never stand still for a moment. I have tried to find out why they perform this little dance continuously. I first thought that it must be gathering food but, according to all the literature I have managed to find, the adults of these insect either don't feed at all, or they feed on a liquid diet, like nectar, because their mouthparts are underdeveloped. I will find out one day...

Almost all the research I have conducted has been concentrated on the long-lived larvae. The larvae are aquatic, like Mayfly and Dragonfly larvae, and so form an important part of the river ecosystem. Mainly by feeding on animal detritus and being an important food source for fish, like trout. Dry flies used in fly fishing are often made to resemble an adult Caddisfly, commonly known as "sedges", so most of you should be able to recognise them. The larvae are predatory and spin an elaborate net that they hold against the current to catch bio detritus. Amazingly, and hard to believe, these nets can contain a kilometer long strand of very fine silk! They must be well constructed because they offer protection for the larvae and filter animal detritus from the water for the larvae to eat.

This little critter, measuring a mere two millimeters in length is invisible against its preferred habitat of lichen-covered rocks unless it moves, and you are looking very closely indeed. It is a Barklice or Booklice from the Psocodea (previously Psocoptera) order of insects. These small, primitive insects are called Booklice when they are found, as tiny brown insects, running over stored books feeding on the paste and glue of the book bindings. They also feed on stored cereal products and can therefore become a major pest. The insects are known as Barklice when they are found on the lichen-covered bark of a tree, although this species spends its time on lichen-covered rocks instead. 

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 then be shoveled into the primitive pestle-and-mortar type mouthparts to be masticated and swallowed.

If you go right to the top of Goudkoppies, on the Zebra trail, and carefully search the lichen-covered rocks around Nosey Point, and you are bound to find a few on almost every rock, grazing away like cows in a field.

I was alerted to a vulture carcass on the Spekboom river close to SPK5. On locating it, I was saddened to see that it was a young Cape Vulture, Gyps coprotheres, lying dead beside the pathway. Since this is a large, endangered raptor, I contacted the Raptor Rehabilitation Center near Dullstroom, whom we've dealt with before, and arranged to meet their representative in Lydenburg to hand over the carcass so they could try to figure out what killed it. Once she saw it, she immediately said the beak fracture (visible in the photo) was characteristic of impact with powerlines during flight. It made sense, since our powerlines run along that river.

The reason this is so sad is because the Cape Griffon is listed as endangered in South Africa, critically endangered in Namibia and regionally extinct in Swaziland and Zimbabwe, and losing one like this is so unnecessary. According to the literature available on the species, though, collisions with powerlines is responsible for the majority of unnatural deaths among Cape Vultures, although poisoning them at a carcass for the muti trade can be their biggest killer in some years.

Cape Vultures are monogamous breeders, with pairs staying together for life. All the breeding pairs in a colony, which can range from fifty pairs to as much as a thousand pairs, gather at their permanent breeding site, usually a large cliff ledge or ledges fifteen to a hundred and fifty meters above the ground, mate and then build a new nest or maintain the previous season's nest in preparation for laying. The males bring the grass and branches to the site while the female uses them to build or repair their nest. Once completed, the female will lay (almost always) one large, quarter of a kilogram egg in the nest and both sexes then spend equal amounts of time incubating it for almost two months before the egg will hatch.

After about five months, the chick will be ready to take its first flight and will still be fed and nurtured by its parents for another four months or more before becoming completely self-sufficient. It takes six years before maturity is reached and the vulture will be ready to breed itself, starting the cycle all over again.

When driving through Nooitgedacht property, on the way to the estate, if you look westwards towards the Long Tom Pass road, up Machienkloof valley, you will notice what looks like white paint on the red cliffs. That is the urea stains from a Cape Vulture colony that deserted that breeding site well over ten years ago. I'm not sure what the cause was. It is usually because of human interference. It is unfortunate because it would be quite a bonus if it was still there because, although we do see these vultures quite regularly as they regally glide through the skies above the estate, a breeding colony would provide much entertainment and many brilliant opportunities to see the best of these magnificent birds.

Oh, Joyous occasions! In August, I went for an exciting hike with my very best old Finsbury buddy, Fraser Moore, from Rock Solid, deep into the forests encircling the Steenkamps' waterfalls. We hiked straight up from the end of the path in search of a huge Yellowwood tree I was told about and thought I could see (?). It was quite hard going, so we were unable to search methodically with the equipment we had available and did not find the tree in question. Instead, we just concentrated on getting out of the gorge. It was very steep and precarious! Out onto the top of the gorge, I might add. Quite a feat, I assure you (eh, Fraser?)

Anyway, before this whole ordeal, me being the orchid-lover that I am, mentioned that there was a chance that we may encounter a special orchid, special not because it is very rare, but because of its gracious delicacy. As we approached the most precarious of circumstances, as it would be, I spotted the orchid I was searching for and exclaimed rather loudly. I'm certain Fraser though I had stumbled upon a huge serpent! It was exciting. Both of us spent an inordinate amount of time balancing on a rocky protrusion photographing the thing. A tiny jumble of air-roots (epiphitic) that would fit into your palm, nestled atop a lichen infested lateral tree branch, with two fifty-millimeter-long strands of delicate, pale green flowers, with nectar-filled spurs half that long. I might add that it was a long way down if we took a misstep!

I had only found this orchid, Mystacidium gracile, once before, right on the very tippy-top of Bushpig Alley in the north. Refer to my blog of September 2020 and you will see how excited I was to find it. But education is great, because, in that column, I said the flowers were pollinated by Hawkmoths, those moths with the long tongues that like to share your drink at sundowners. Well, I have now learned that the flowers that attract Hawkmoths are usually particularly scented and white, a bright colour that they can concentrate on while they hover above the flower and suck its nectar from within the long spur into which its long probiscis can reach. In order not to hover, the flower would have to be big enough for it to settle on This orchid flower, however, and others like it, have a different scent and are a pale green colour, not so visible to the Hawkmoth so they would struggle to hover efficiently. Instead, the tiny, too small for a large Hawkmoth to settle on, and specifically scented flowers attract settling moths, moths that rely more on smell and less on sight, that settle on the flower (instead of hovering) and insert their long probiscis' into the spur of the orchid and suck up the sweet, energy-filled nectar. Settling moths occur in a few moth families, but there are not many of them with probiscis' long enough to reach the nectar. According to Researchgate, there are five species, from three families of moth that may be attracted to this particular plant, I will need to dig deeper to find out which ones. One day... 

As you will have noticed in my previous blurbs about pollination: I am awed by the intricacies of how flowering plants and insects have co-evolved to maximise pollination efficiency. Orchids are the leaders in specialist pollination, and this is a good example indeed. 

Now for another special orchid. This one because it is non-descript and very rare. It's a Nervilia lilacea, just one little leaf, thirty millimeters wide, peeking from the forest floor. I found a whole colony of them beside the second gorge above Solitude (unit 5) in Solitude valley. I managed to photograph the leaf but will have to wait till November and or December to get a glimpse of the solitary little flower. The problem is, the tiny flower appears before the leaf, and only for a few hours! I was there more recently and couldn't even find where exactly I had seen these leaves a few months before. So, I will have to visit the spot frequently over those two months to maybe get a chance to see a flower. Not too easy to get to, but I have made a path that makes it a bit easier. Please, if you're visiting during those months and you want to see one, we can give it a try. It will only take an hour or so and, although the chances are small, it will be worth it. I'll let you know when I find a flower.

I am sometimes lucky enough to receive photos from members of wildlife spotted on the estate. This photo was taken along the Spekboom river by Dave DeVos from "The Croft's" (unit 19). It is a beautiful pic of a Half-collared Kingfisher, Alcedo semitorquata, perched beside the thickets just above the water. They are one of our iconic species on the estate and very special to view. They are usually seen perched low down in the brush alongside fast-running rivers waters or flying its fast, direct flight just above the water's surface.

It's a small kingfisher that resembles a Malachite in size and looks. The Malachite, though, has orange cheeks. Kingfishers are generally only slightly sexually dimorphic, and it is no different with this species. The one pictured above is a male because the base of its bottom bill is not tinged in red.

Another amazing sighting I had when adventuring up the Steenkamps gorge with Fraser from Rock Solid, was this bizarre fly, a Stalk-eyed Fly from the Diopsidae family. We found a whole bunch of them buzzing around the bushes, close to the ground in the early morning. According to the info I managed to find, they roost on hanging roots above the water during the night. Then, in the early morning, they gather on the bushes near the stream and the males establish a lek, a gathering of males for the purpose of competition for females. The males fac e each other with front legs splayed wide. They then push their faces up against each other, and the one with the longest stalks (largest space between the eyes) dominates and moves on to the next male. The females watch this and are attracted to the male with the widest eyes. Very sexy!

Once mating is complete, the female lays her eggs in and amongst rotting vegetation on the forest floor. The larvae hatch and consume the rotting vegetables and then enter their pupal stage. Once emerging from the pupa, the newly adult fly's stalk eyes are squished up against their bodies, so they gulp air in through their mouths and pump it up into their faces and inflate their stalks, like balloons, until they are fully extended!

This, like the extraordinarily long tail of a male peacock, is a great example of "sexual selection", where the female's preference for, in this case, wide-apart eyes, results in the males evolving physical traits which may even actually hinder survival. As long as the male can still breed. Crazy, eh?  

That's it for winter then. We have entered our springtime now and, to date, it has been rather dry, with only two decent rainfalls to speak of. But the excitement is there! Lots of new life popping up all over the place! Get on down and let's play.

 FINSBURY SNOWFALL JULY 2023

On Monday 10th July, at about six-thirty in the evening, it started to snow lightly on the Long Tom Pass. By eight-thirty, cars were getting stuck on the pass and local farmers were assisting but sending messages for people to avoid the pass. The following morning, we here at Finsbury, woke up to a fairy wonderland!

My buddy and landy up by the end of the road near Troutkloof waterfall.

We had an average of 12mm of rain over the estate and that, according to Google, translates to twelve centimeters of snow that fell. Snow only fell on the higher lying areas, from about 1850 MASL, so I went up toward the Miner's cottage and Don, Anne and the family went up the Razorback road, a much better option looking at the photos.

On the Miner's cottage road.

Up on the Razorback road the snow was much thicker, a real fairy winterland!

I have heard that it has snowed at Finsbury before, and suppose, after questioning a few folk, that it was in 1998, or thereabouts. I'm sure some of you remember and, if you do, please let us know in the comments below. Happy skiing!

The MacCrimmon snowman!!!