ANIMAL RELEASE

ANIMAL RELEASE IN FINSBURY

We've had a good relationship with the Dullstroom Bird of Prey and Rehabilitation Centre (visit their website www.birdsofprey.co.za) near the lovely little town after which it is named, since the initial Covid lockdown in early twenty-twenty. I'm sure you all know of the place, since most of you drive past it on the way here from the Big Smoke. Many of you have even visited and enjoyed one of their spectacular demonstrations, where you get to see some of our most magnificent raptors up close. 

Our relationship began in late March twenty-twenty, while we were in the first of the COVID-19 lockdowns, David, our staff supervisor, found a wounded Cape Eagle Owl at Cochy-Bundhu (unit 1). We noticed it was wounded but it could still fly, albeit very weakly. After attempts to feed it with trapped rats failed, Don contacted the Dullstroom centre and Magdali Theron, a passionate animal protector, came all the way out here to collect the owl. Unfortunately, the owl was past saving and died two days later. (refer my blog: FINSBURY AUTUMN WILDLIFE, posted 25 April 2020) 

Then, more recently, during last year's winter, the Twiggs' from "the Crofts" (unit 19) found the carcass of a Cape Vulture on the Spekboom river. I recovered the carcass, and because they are such an endangered and iconic species, I contacted the Dullstroom centre to report it. Once again, Magdali came over to Lydenburg where I met her and handed over the carcass for a post-mortem to discover the cause of death. There was a crack on its beak which was characteristic of the wound suffered by these birds after a collision with power lines, which we have running over the Spekboom at the spot where it was found. (refer my blog of WINTER 2023, posted on 17 October 2023)

And so, Magdali contacted Don quite recently and requested that they be allowed to release a pair of Serval and a Cuckoo Hawk on the estate. Don naturally agreed it was a good idea and so, on February thirteenth, Dullstroom Bird of Prey and Rehabilitation Centre arrived here with a young sibling pair of Serval cats and a beautiful Cuckoo Hawk.

Firstly, we met them at the Spekboom parking by the picnic spot, where they released the Cuckoo Hawk, Aviceda cuculoides, which was quite something to witness! While Magdali was introducing her colleagues and we were chit-chatting, the bird rudely reminded us of why we were here by thrashing around impatiently in its cage!

The hawk was brought to the rehab center over a year prior with a broken wing, a sure death sentence to any flying bird. Magdali had spent over a year nursing the bird back to health and had decided it was time to try releasing it. She was worried that the wing was not going to be strong enough.

When she opened the cage, the Cuckoo Hawk did not hesitate and alighted with powerful wingbeats into the clear afternoon. I enjoyed Magdali's jubilation the most of all! I asked her if she was sad, looking for a tear or two, but no, she was over-the-moon. A very selfless person, she is.

In the photo from left is: the Cuckoo Hawk, just as it took off; Magdali; one of her colleagues; and David, our supervisor. Then, in the top photo, if you look center bottom-left, you will see the Cuckoo Hawk gaining height as it begins turning towards "The Crofts" (unit 19).

They are quite secretive and tend to remain still when perched, even if one ventures quite close, which would very quickly chase away other smaller raptors. They spend their time perched in trees and bushes searching for the more cryptic of the prey animals like chameleons, Katydids and grasshoppers, which are all well camouflaged. They are also quite small and resemble a large grey cuckoo in flight, and are therefore easily overlooked.

So, when next fishing and walking along the Spekboom, keep a look out for the Cuckoo Hawk. It would be so good to get to see it a bit. Let us know if you do.

Then we moved on into the depths of Hidden Valley (South/ern Valley), our "wilderness area" of the estate, to the parking for the Rock Kestrel Trail and Olinia waterfall walk. There we were to release the pair of Serval.

The Serval are siblings, a brother and a sister, brought in by concerned folks that found them alone in the bush, around a year previously. This is quite sad because, although the folks were well-intentioned, it was a very bad thing to do, because their mother was probably out hunting and surely did return to where she had stashed her cubs, never to see them again. Magdali says that this sort of thing happens quite regularly, involving many different species.

The estimated week-old sibling cubs were fed with milk bottles for about three weeks until they were ready to be weaned, all this time being kept as far from human contact as possible. They were then released to the care of an enclosed older Serval pair that were permanent residents (previously being too exposed to humans so unreleasable in the wild) so as to avoid human contact while they sharpened their hunting and social skills, until they were old enough to disperse from their mother in a natural situation, which is about a year.

And so, we come to mid-February, after a year, to the release of the cats. As it should be, these Serval were extremely skittish of people, and you can see in the photo, the sister is curious and wants to exit the hokkie, but the bigger brother, at the back, just stares at me.

Finally, the sister cat bolted in the direction she was looking in the photo, which was directly in front of Mike Beaumont, before disappearing into the nearby bracken fern. It took a little more persuasion to get the brother cat out, but when he emerged, he shot off to the same bracken patch and they moved quickly off together towards the Klipdrif stream nearby.

We have many Servals here on the estate, them possibly being the most common large predator here, because it is optimum habitat for them. The release of two youngsters would not disturb the functioning social system
between the cats because they will try entering the system like any other youngsters would, and I hope we can be of similar help in the future.

 

  

SUMMERTIME 23/24

 SUMMERTIME!

Well, that's a wrap! It seems as if twenty-twenty-three shot by like a rocket. But I must say, though, one must be careful what one wishes for. Or, at least, the timing of that wish :) In the previous blog I mentioned how low the river levels were relative to the progression of the season, and how we were worried that the rivers would be a little low for the festive season. Well, it has rained almost every day of the festive season! We had received a mere 230mm of precipitation for half of the rainy season that had passed by the end of November. Now, at the end of January 2024, we've received almost 310mm more, giving us a healthy average of 537mm precipitation (a max of 617mm in the north and a min of 428mm in the west) over the estate, well over the half-way mark for halfway through the season. It was as if the gods were conspiring against us here, because it rained every single time we had something planned, so we landed up doing many an excursion in the rain! 

Above is a photo taken from the helipad looking just north of east during the full moon time, one of the few times we could observe the celestial gem without an overcast sky

It may have rained a lot, but that didn't stop us. I conducted quite a few long and arduous hikes during the rain, and they proved to be very exciting and fulfilling. On one such hike right up to the summit of Mount Anderson was undertaken in a good downpour and half of the members chose minimal clothing, and the other half chose to waterproof up. I was one of the waterproofed ones, knowing how quickly one can lose heat, but it seems that the minimalists were wiser because we were all just wet at the end anyway.

We found a bunch of special flowers in bloom and, on the descent, still not far from the top, the rain stopped and the clouds opened up to reveal the incredible view that is Hidden Valley and everything else looking north-west from there. The one group member, in his late teens or early twenties, said it was the most beautiful place he had ever been in. I looked around, and I must say, I agreed with him. The sight, so clean, fresh and verdant, was to behold!

With the abundance of water all around, there was also an abundance of life in full mid-summer swing. Below is a gallery of some of it:

And so, as mentioned in the introduction, many a mile was hiked during the rain! Here, Charlotte, Gus and Rich, from Jackpot cottage, force their way through a misty thicket in a high-altitude steep-sided gorge, right on the watershed, not too far north of Mount Anderson summit. It was a little harsh on Charlotte and Rich, because they were out visiting South Africa from England, and Charlotte surely wanted to show sunny South Africa off to her new husband! It landed up being quite a hike and we struggled through the mud and up some really steep and slippery mountain slopes, but it sure was worth it because we got to see some special things... 

Like this huge Brown Leatherback Slug, Laevicaulis natalensis, that we discovered high up on the Cycle path from Loop Road to the high-altitude KLF road. Slugs are not rare but are only exposed during wet times because they are prone to desiccate, or dry out and die, otherwise. When it is not raining, they are usually buried under leaves or logs in a moist place. So, we were lucky to find this huge girl / guy sliding along minding his / her own business on a pleasant wet day, affording us a view of his / her strange morphology.

Firstly, I don't say "his / her" because they can choose their own pronoun each morning, I say it because they are hermaphrodites, meaning they have both male and female organs and can mate as males or females! When one slug encounters the slime trail of another, he / she kicks down a gear and follows the other until he / she catches up. Then they mate by twisting around each other and swapping sperm. Then they both go their own way, slowly, until they are ready to dig a hole and deposit between twenty and forty eggs, after which he / she will go her / his own way, slowly again.

And the morphology? A slug is simply a snail without a shell. This one, from the Veronicellidae family, has an internal vestigial shell that has become a gland to store calcium salts that it uses to aid digestion. Then, where a snail's shell would normally be, the Brown Leatherback slug has a mantle made of tough, leathery skin. If a predator approaches, and you can imagine that just about everything around would want to eat it, the slug contracts on the floor, thus gripping the substrate with its contracted foot and body. At the same time, it retracts its two pairs of feelers and its body simply becomes a tough, leathery, slimy blob attached firmly to the floor. Most birds will struggle to get purchase with its beak around this blob and finally give up trying. The slime also has a poor smell and taste, making the slug less palatable. In fact, it is important for humans to cook slugs before eating them because they are carriers of minute nematode parasites that can result in a deadly form of meningitis in humans. This is usually when people eat unrinsed leaf vegetables where slugs may still be hiding.

But then you get the Common Slug-eater, a snake occurring here on the estate that exclusively eats snails and slugs (see blog November 2019). This snake specialises in finding a slime trail and following it until it encounters the slug or snail. Then it simply bites and swallows the slug, or forces its way between the snail and its shell to separate them before swallowing the snail and discarding the shell.

The fleshy stripe along the body in the photo is the foot, protruding from the underside of its body. That foot produces most of the mucus so that it will protect the foot from the substrate while the muscles stretch and contract, pushing the slug forward, albeit slowly. Also, the mucus on the edges of the foot contains excreted fibres that stop it from sliding backwards on its own slime trail while going uphill!

Finally, the two pairs of stalks that can be retracted have sensory organs on them. The top ones have vesicular eyes that are quite advance for arthropods even (never mind primitive gastropods) but still way simple compared to mammals' eyes. These eyes sit on top of the stalks and do not have the muscles our eyes have to focus on objects. Instead, the slug moves the stalks backwards and forwards to focus on things. Also, the eyes can turn from side to side, too, so it doesn't have to swivel its head to look to the side.

The lower pair of stalks have olfactory organs on the end and this sense of smell is used to find and identify suitable foodstuffs in the form of living and dead vegetation of all types like detritus, leaves, flowers, fruit, also mushrooms and lichens.

I was reading in the literature that, up north in the temperate climes where slugs hibernate, that they show agonistic behaviour towards each other when competing for resources, sometimes resulting in one slug attacking another. I just struggle to picture a slug attacking another one, har har har! It must be the slowest fight on the planet!

The very tippy top of the gorge from our hike with the folks from Jackpot cottage referred to above is filled with the most extraordinary plants. Every time I go up there, I seem to find a new species of special plant. The first time I went up there in 2018, I found the newly described Dwarf Pineapple Lily, Eucomis sonnetteana, which I boasted about in my blog of January 2020. It is the delicate little Pineapple flower in the top photo, which I found amongst a whole colony of them this year. Since then and last season, I also found two new species (for our list) of Nodding Violets and this season, I found this gorgeous little milkweed with these tiny, delicate flowers that span only a half-a-centimeter in size. I initially thought it was a dry flower that was dead while the ovary was expanding and the fruit developing. On much closer inspection, though, an extraordinary flower was revealed!

I found this grasshopper climbing around on a Barbeton Groundsel on a rocky shelf on the cliffs above the waterfall that leads to the mountain hatchery, near Morrin Pools. It is a Stinkweed Grasshopper, Phymateus leprosus, in its tenth and final nymph stage before gaining adulthood. I featured an adult of this species in my November and December 2020 blog, and as you will see, the adult looks completely different to this nymph-stage individual. Looking closely at this one, on the fleshy leaves of the Groundsel, I get the impression that the thig is made of moulded plastic. What a beautiful design! 

The Stinkweed grasshopper has ten nymph stages (grows and sheds ten times, changing size and colour each time) which take about a year to complete, the most nymph stages of any grasshopper. The adult stage, where finding a mate is the top priority, lasts for about six months, so a lifespan should encompass two wet seasons. Many of the host plants they consume during the nymph stages are highly toxic but harmless to these grasshoppers. Instead, like the larvae of African Monarch butterflies (check Jolly Season 2018), their bodies separate the poison from the good stuff, assimilate the good stuff and store the poisons and carry these into adulthood as a protection against enemies. This species has a particularly potent cardiotoxin and is responsible for more than one human death after being eaten, so even though grasshoppers are a tremendous source of protein in a survival situation, one needs to be careful.

And so, I decided to delve into the art of gardening, and built me a little south-facing rockery in the garden space on the northern side of my house. I have made it a sort of plant rehabilitation garden. What I've done is follow where a troop of baboons have traversed, or below that, and collected the plants and even the strips of mosses that they have partially eaten, or dislodged in their climbing activities, that were then lying on the floor. These I have planted in my rockery, and I have been amazed at the species that are appearing!

This picture is of the very first flower that was produced by one of my first patients, a Many-flowered Nodding Violet (another common name for the genus is African Primrose), which I found severely damaged, together with three others, in the Upper Majubane gorge, not far from the big waterfall. Two of them didn't make it while a third began to bloom, even with a fraction of a leaf (most Nodding Violets have only a single leaf), but some critter destroyed it on my rockery, a rodent by the looks of the plants remains. This one has survived with less than a half a leaf and has flowered profusely.

But, coming out one morning and seeing this Inch Worm, from the Geometridae family of moths, checking my flower out, made me want to remove it in haste. Then I stopped myself and reminded myself, besides the fact that it is a nice hobby, that I am doing this using only plants found directly on Finsbury Estate, either seeds, cuttings, damaged plants or plants in pathways that will be damaged by the brush cutters. Therefore, I will not try to stop indigenous plant predators from interfering. The plants must fend for themselves in that regard. And so, I left the Inchworm to do what it needed to do.

The following morning I came out expecting the flower to have been devoured, but instead, I found the Inchworm hanging straight down, off the back of the flower's petals, preparing to enter its pupal stage. Silly worm! It obviously doesn't know that the flower only lasts for just over a day before it falls to the ground! I left it alone again and when I return the following time, the flower was on the floor and the worm had disappeared, obviously to find a more permanent place to pupate.

This psychedelic beetle reminds me of that eccentric piano player of yesteryear, Liberace, with the bushy eyebrows and gaudy velvet outfit! It is a Fruit Chafer, Atrichenaphinis nigropunctulata, although that is a bit of a misnomer since this species does not seek out and eat fruit, leading to crop damages, like its cousins in the same subfamily, Cetoniinae. Instead, you would normally find this beetle with its head buried deep into a protea flower with only its behind sticking out up into the air, stuffing itself with pollen and nectar and being a good pollinator when it approaches the next Protea flower with the previous flower's pollen stuck to those long hairs on its face and chin. Here, it is enjoying the pollen and nectar on an Everlasting growing up on the Zebra trail, close to the Troutkloof waterfall.

Wow! How is this for a superb photograph of a Wailing Cisticola, Cisticola lais? I was enjoying an excursion up on the Miner's cottage road with the Twiggs' from The Crofts (unit 19) and we came across this pair of Cisticolas, and while we were trying to figure out which species it was, Kenna Twiggs got this classic shot of one of the pair, in flight over some dried out Sheepsdaisies in the drizzle. Well done Kenna! Now, as you probably know, cisticolas are notoriously difficult to identify. The true LBJs (little brown jobs) in the real sense. And it is one of the five cisticolas that we get on the estate, that I've identified so far, that all look very similar. 

When hiking in the grasslands, particularly on rocky slopes, there is a ubiquitous plaintive whistle that can almost always be heard coming from this little bird, the Wailing Cisticola. The subspecies monticola, that occurs here on the estate (above), is the plainest of them all which makes it even more difficult to tell apart from the other common Cisticola in the estate, the Lazy Cisticola, C. aberrans, which prefers the rank bush along the rivers but also spends time on rocky slopes. The only way to tell these two cisticolas apart without hearing the sound is by the slight streaking on the back of the Wailing Cisticola as opposed to the Lazy Cisticola's plain back. The Lazy Cisticola also likes to cock its tail like that of a  Prinia. But then we get the Drakensberg Prinia, Prinia hypoxantha, that also enjoys a similar habitat! The easiest way to discern the Lazy Cisticola and the Drakensberg Prinia is the presence of streaking on the breast of the Prinia compared to the plain breast of the Cisticolas. 

Then there is a third and fourth species of Cisticola that occur on high-lying, short grasslands, but they are relatively easy to distinguish from the others by their diminutive size, but extremely difficult to tell apart from each other. The Wing-snapping cisticola, C. ayresii, emits clicking sounds in its call and practices wing-snapping when it flies. But, if it is not calling or snapping its wings in flight, it is nary impossible to distinguish it from the other high-altitude, short grassland species, the Cloud Cisticola, C. textrix, And they're both tiny!

Finally, not too long ago, I saw an LBJ, most likely a cisticola, around the rank bush at K33. I heard the call and didn't recognise it, but had my birding application with me on my field tablet, and viola! It was a Levaillant's Cisticola, C. tinniens, and besides having a slightly bolder back than the others, looks veeeeery similar! 

 

I accompanied the Andersons from Kingfisher Lodge (unit 6) to the Steenkamps' waterfalls on one of the rare sunny days and Amy Anderson pointed these tiny (biggest one 5mm) creatures attached to the rocks just beneath the clear, fast-flowing waters on that lovely stretch from the forest path to the waterfalls. Embarrassingly, I did not have a clue, even though I had noticed them many a time in the past. I removed one of the bigger ones, turned it upside down, and the photo above is what I saw.

The six suckers, clearly visible on the underside of the creature in the photo, made it rather easy to identify because the suckers are unique amongst insects to only one family in the Diptera (order of flies), the Blephariceridae, or Net-winged Midges. Next, I discovered that only one genus of Net-winged midges occurs in Southern Africa, and that that genus, Elporia, is endemic, meaning it is unique to Southern Africa and found nowhere else. Next, I found that only three species occur in this area and the most common by far, is Elporia marieps. So, I'm going to go with that for the mean time: It's a Net-winged Mountain Midge larva, probably in its fourth and final instar before it enters the pupal stage.

When it is ready to pupate, it attaches itself, with adhesive pads, to a rock beneath shallow, fast-flowing water, with the insect's head pointing downstream, and enters the pupal stage. They breathe through a pair of breathing horns, which are made up of successive vertical plates that trap air bubbles. Once the adult is ready to emerge from the pupal case, it perforates the case and uses the current to help it escape into the water. The pupa reaches a very advanced state, and the adult emerges with its wings fully developed and folded tightly, resulting in creased wings when they open which is the origin of the common name. With fully developed wings, the adult can unfold them and take off from the fast-flowing mountain streams they inhabited for the bulk of their lives.

The adult only lives for two to three weeks, and so must get on with it. Their mandibles are undeveloped so it is believed that they do not eat as adults, or if they do, they may subsist on a liquid diet of nectar from streamside flowers. In many species, the males form swarms and dance, like mayflies and non-biting midges (see blogs: Winter 2022 - non-biting midge; September 2020 - mayfly) and the females fly into this swarm and, well, let's just say she does not struggle to find a mate. Once ready, she lays her eggs singly in cracks in rocks, usually in the spray of rapids.

The egg usually develops overwinter and the nymphs hatch in spring when the water-flow picks up after the first rains. The nymphs endure four stages of growth and shedding before the pupal stage and they attach themselves to the rocks, beneath the rushing water with those suckers. When they want to move, they release them in succession while moving forward in search of diatoms and other micro algae and mosses on which they feed.

They cannot tolerate any pollution, silt or slowing of the water (they require well-oxygenated water, ie fast-flowing) and are therefore used in Environmental impact assessments as an indicator species. 

Nice one! Thank you, Amy Anderson.  

A good hike barely went by without us stumbling upon a Berg Adder, Bitis atropos, which I have featured in many blogs before this one. But look at that grumpy face! I just can't help it. This one was only about a hundred-and-fifty millimeters long but, as usual put up a great huff and puff when we found it. It was a hike to the summit of Mount Anderson, directly up from the Sundowner spot in Hidden Valley* and we got to see three different Berg Adders in the first kilometer!

This photo is nice and close-up, so it will be easy to put some simple characteristics of adders on the table. Our adders all belong to the Viperinae subfamily of vipers. All the other subfamilies of vipers have these fundamental characteristics, plus and / or minus a few, but this subfamily is from where they all sprout:

• They have a visible neck, meaning the head is distinctive from the body. This is because the massive venom glands, the swollen cheeks in the photo, create a diamond shape to the head.
• They have cat-like eyes which allows them to be active during the day and night, allowing them a wider niche to exploit.
• They have keeled scales, which means the scales have a ridge running longitudinally along its length, giving a rough matt look to the snake, making them less shiny and better camouflaged. Their locomotion and hunting strategy require camouflage more than the ability to slide quickly through the undergrowth, which would benefit a smooth-scaled, fast-moving snake.
• The body is massive, with much muscle, allowing them to coil and spring at remarkable speeds, benefitting a strategy of ambush predator. Hide, wait, and strike with speed and violence!
• The fangs are extremely long, curved, and hinged so that they can be folded back into the mouth. This enables the snake to inject venom deep into the musculature of its victim. The venom is mostly protease, an enzyme that starts the digestion process. Because of the volume of venom, remember those massive venom glands making fat cheeks in the photo. This massive breakdown of bodily proteins subdues the victim over some time, and the snake needs to follow the victim, with the aid of smell, until it finds it. Now, this is where this one particular species, the Berg Adder, differs from the rest. Instead of having this protease-filled filled cytotoxin, like all other viperids, it has a much bigger mix of neurotoxins, which is the nerve-affecting venom found in elapids, like mambas and cobras, the deadliest of our snakes. Neurotoxins are much quicker acting, and it is believed that this need to subdue the prey immediately is required because, being rocky and mountainous, prey items can fall and would be more difficult to trace through smell, the longer the venom took to be effective.
• Internally, they are ovoviviparous, which means they retain their eggs within the body, until they hatch there. The mother then gives birth to live young. And get this: the bigger the mother is, doesn't mean she lays more eggs, but means that she lays bigger eggs (remember they hatch inside her) and the resultant young are bigger than their peers, giving a distinct advantage.

These are the easier-to-understand characteristics of these fine snakes, which are very common up in the grasslands. They're just very small but, getting up close, they sure can frown!

* Trish Myburgh from Vakatsha, better known as K9 Cafe (unit 9), once accidentally called the sundowner spot at the end of Hidden Valley (South/ern Valley), or old site 26, "SERENITY". What a lovely and suitable name for the spot. So, if you hear me referring to Serenity, then you know where I mean.

I was so excited, whilst searching for a Christmas tree close to The Crofts, just within Highland Run, to come upon this Dark Sheetwebber spider web filled with jolly little spiderlings! Wow! They are perfect replicas of the adult (check out my blog of Late Summer 2023) and will soon begin to disperse.

The Dark Sheetwebber, Euprosthenops pulchella, belongs in the Nursery-web and water spider family, the Pisauridae. But, as there is always an exception to the rule, they are not wandering spiders like the rest of the family, with the Nursery-web spiders resembling and behaving very similarly to the common wolf spiders (blogs September 2019 and January 2022), who do not use a web to capture prey but instead wander around actively hunting their prey, and thus, the female carries her ball-like egg sac with her while the eggs incubate (the Wolf spider carries her egg sac by her spinnerets on her abdomen while the nursery-web spider carries hers with her jaws). The Water spiders have very similar habits but most of it takes place on the waters surface, using the water's surface tension to stay dry.

The Sheetwebber, by exception, builds a horizontal, sheet-like web like a Funnel-web spider (blog of February 2020) does, also with a tunnel-like retreat to escape danger. The eggs are laid and incubate within the retreat, so she doesn't have to carry them with her like the other members of the family. If an insect lands on, or walks on to her sheet-like web, she darts out of her tunnel and subdues the victim with a potent venom that is common among wandering spiders, because they don't use silk to help subdue their prey like web bound spiders.

When they feel ready, these tiny spiderlings will climb to an elevated spot above the web, release a long strand of silk into the wind, and let the wind carry them away. This is called "ballooning", and it is how most spiderlings disperse before establishing their own web as an adult.

It looks like we may have a new kid on the block. The first photo was taken at K24 with the Rivett-Carnac trophy camera in early December, while the second photo was taken by Trent Sinclair, our neighbour and the long-time manager of Mount Anderson Ranch, in the middle of January.

The new boy is the subject of the first photo, and he is the one facing the camera in the second shot, being approached by China-eyes, our current dominant male which I know many of you have seen because he is relaxed with vehicles.

Now, male leopards are extremely territorial, like the female, except his territory is much bigger than a females', and encompasses two to five females' territories within his boundaries. Often, if a dominant male finds another male within his territorial boundaries, he will chase him away or fight him, with death being the outcome for the loser. Mostly, though, they will dominate the newcomer and drive him off, like what happened when the second photo was taken up on Mount Anderson Ranch.

Territory size is about twenty-five square kilometers and one-hundred-and-thirty square kilometers for a female and male territory consecutively, in the Kruger Park area. I have not been able to find an average territory size for this area but suspect it is a lot larger because prey densities are much lower up here, which will explain why the dominant male here, was less aggressive to a newcomer. Take note that animal behaviour is dynamic and will change with circumstances, for example: In areas, like deserts, where prey animals are few and far between, leopards may not even be territorial, simply because it would take too much effort to mark and defend such a large area, and the chances of encountering another leopard very small. This area would be in between a high-density prey area (like the KNP) and a low-density area (like a desert), and so, although the leopards are still territorial, they are more tolerant of strangers and rovers.

This new young boy will not go away easily. He will try to silently and secretly survive in the area until the dominant male dies, or he becomes big and bold enough to challenge China-eyes for the area. Thereafter, if successful, China-eyes will become an old rogue male that will have to silently, and secretly, survive until he is too old to hunt anymore, while the new guy gets all the mating opportunities.

The biggest killer of leopards in our area is roadkill and hunting. Due to the large territory sizes, the males frequently cross roads and fences. As you know, cats are notorious for being killed by cars on roads and leopards are no different. Also, most land bordering our reserve are plots or farms and, as you know, maplottes and farmers are also notorious for shooting leopards on their properties, permit or not. And so, it is highly unlikely that China-eyes will become an old rogue, and more likely that he will be shot or killed on the road.

Exciting stuff! Let us hope that the new guy also becomes quite relaxed with vehicles so that we will be able to get to see him, like old China-eyes who has been in charge here for about three or four years now....

To end off on a more worrying note: We have been asked by the MTPA (Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency) to be on the lookout for rabbit carcasses in our area, and if found, to report it immediately to them.

Towards the end of twenty-twenty-two, the RABBIT HAEMORRHAGIC DISEASE VIRUS (2) was discovered for the first time in South Africa. It was discovered in the Northern Cape province, which is very underpopulated, and has since spread to four of our provinces, including Mpumalanga.

It is an extremely contagious virus that is carried by a large number of mammals but only affects Lagomorphs (Rabbits and Hares), with about an eighty percent mortality rate. It attacks the liver and causes bleeding sores there which rapidly kill its host. If a scavenger eats, or even just touches, the carcass, it will carry the virus indefinitely and if it comes into contact with other mammals, will spread it to them so that they can carry it indefinitely until it maybe comes into contact with a Lagomorph. The virus can adhere to clothes and even spread by the wind, it is so contagious.

And so, if we find a carcass, like the above Hewitt's Red Rock Hare, Pronolagus saundersii, the only Lagomorph that occurs here (except possibly feral rabbits which I saw frequently at the Mount Anderson Reserve gate in the old days), the instructions are to cover the carcass with a box, so that it is not scavenged or touched, and immediately call MTPA who will notify the state vet, who will come out here and collect the carcass for tests. We have been requested not to handle the carcass in any way.

This photo was taken by Nickie Shales from Kingfisher Lodge (unit 6) and the carcass was on the roadside alongside K12. I went to investigate and only found some fur and a pompom tail. It was scavenged in the four hours from when the photo was taken, the carcass reported, and me investigating! I did report it, and was told that, if it was killed by RHDV2, there would more than likely be a lot of carcasses found in the near future, with such a high mortality rate expected. Fortunately, this occurred one week before writing this and no more carcasses have been found, yet.

So please, if you encounter a rabbit carcass, please contact the office with the exact location of it as quickly as possible. Remember not to touch it, even with your shoe. Not because it is harmful to us, it is completely harmless, but because you will become a carrier, and if you come into contact with any other rabbits or hares, you will be the death of them.

Well, that's it folks. Please come and visit, especially while the estate is so lush and verdant. If you do, remember you can ask me to take you on a guided hike, walk or drive anytime. Just contact me, Jimmy, on the radio or email me at jimmy@finsbury.co.za, or better yet, Whatsapp me at 064 523 7058. Cool bananas, see you soon.

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!