Country Life

Two months on, and the rural lifestyle has really settled into my heart.  So many reasons to move from the dingy (and cheap) granny flat I called home for the first year of living in South Africa.  Compensating for no longer being walking distance to varsity, there is now the attraction of a home out in the savannah.

The house and 10 Hectares of land provide enough fields for the horses, and a thoughtfully developed wildlife garden with indigenous trees, cycads, and plenty of aloes.  The aloes have been flowering vivid colours over the weeks of mid-winter and providing rich resources for the sunbirds.  Two beastly Rottweiler’s keep me company in the garden - ensuring a cat-free environment!

The dawn chorus of cape turtle and red eyed doves gives the sunrise a very African feel as it casts a fiery glow on the acacias’ flat crown.  Feeding the garden birds has attracted a rich diversity from the surrounding area.  Millet and crushed maize is favoured by village weavers, doves, sparrows, whydahs and mannikins.  Bulbuls, white-eyes, and mousebirds relish the fruit, and I have habituated cape robins, boubous, olive thrush, and blue-headed agama’s to take mealworms from the veranda. A recently finished project is the installation of a number of bamboo segments to attract cavity nesting birds - woodpeckers, barbets, scimitarbills, and honeyguides might all be attracted to these sites - and spring is just around the corner.

The property is connected to the Lower Mpushini Conservancy, comprised of many small holdings along the Mpushini river and surrounding savanna valley. Abound with duiker, impala, nyala and zebra – I’m looking forward to the day I brave getting in the saddle again and riding through the valley, apparently the nyala and zebra are very habituated to mounted horses. As dusk shifts into night the howling jackal chorus sometimes drifts up the valley, and fiery-necked nightjars give the night a distinctive ambiance.  Tonight, while writing this blog, the calls of a Barn Owl become the 100th species to be added to the garden bird list.

My bird list is expected to keep growing at a rapid pace now that the spring and summer migrants are arriving.  Snakes too may become plentiful -  judging from what Gael has had to remove from the house in previous summers (we don’t release black mamba’s, but all other species are happily returned to the wild).  The very plentiful termite mounds across the valley will no doubt provide some spectacles when the November rains soak the underground termitaria and the emergence of alates are harvested by all the wildlife around.

The raptor sightings have been fairly poor in comparison – with just the resident long-crested eagles in regular attendance of the horse fields.  Recently the yellow-billed kites have also become regular residents and will be part of the furniture until the autumn migration.  A goshawk or black sparrowhawk is rarely seen flashing through the bush, but often attested to by the chaos and panic around the bird feeders most mornings.



Bird List from 29 June to 18 August

Egyptian Goose (Alopochen aegyptiaca)
Yellow-billed Duck (Anas undulata)
Natal Francolin (Francolinus natalensis)
Hamerkop (Scopus umbretta)
Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea)
Black-headed Heron (Ardea melanocephala)
Purple Heron (Ardea purpurea)
Sacred Ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus)
Hadada Ibis (Bostrychia hagedash)
Black-winged Kite (Elanus caeruleus)
Long-crested Eagle (Lophaetus occipitalis)
African Marsh-Harrier (Circus ranivorus)
African Goshawk (Accipiter tachiro)
Black Goshawk (Accipiter melanoleucus)
Black Kite (Milvus migrans)
African Fish-Eagle (Haliaeetus vocifer)
Crowned Lapwing (Vanellus coronatus)
Feral Pigeon (Columba livia (Domestic type))
Red-eyed Dove (Streptopelia semitorquata)
Ring-necked Dove (Streptopelia capicola)
Laughing Dove (Streptopelia senegalensis)
Emerald-spotted Wood-Dove (Turtur chalcospilos)
Purple-crested Turaco (Tauraco porphyreolophus)
Klaas's Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx klaas)
Barn Owl (Tyto alba)
Fiery-necked Nightjar (Caprimulgus pectoralis)
White-rumped Swift (Apus caffer)
Speckled Mousebird (Colius striatus)
Brown-hooded Kingfisher (Halcyon albiventris)
Eurasian Hoopoe (Upupa epops)
Green Woodhoopoe (Phoeniculus purpureus)
Common Scimitar-bill (Rhinopomastus cyanomelas)
Crowned Hornbill (Tockus alboterminatus)
Crested Barbet (Trachyphonus vaillantii)
Black-collared Barbet (Lybius torquatus)
Rufous-necked Wryneck (Jynx ruficollis)
Golden-tailed Woodpecker (Campethera abingoni)
Cardinal Woodpecker (Dendropicos fuscescens)
Cape Batis (Batis capensis)
Chinspot Batis (Batis molitor)
Brubru (Nilaus afer)
Black-crowned Tchagra (Tchagra senegalus)
Southern Boubou (Laniarius ferrugineus)
Sulphur-breasted Bushshrike (Telophorus sulfureopectus)
Grey-headed Bushshrike (Malaconotus blanchoti)
Southern Fiscal (Lanius collaris)
African Black-headed Oriole (Oriolus larvatus)
Fork-tailed Drongo (Dicrurus adsimilis)
Pied Crow (Corvus albus)
White-necked Raven (Corvus albicollis)
Plain Martin (Riparia paludicola)
Lesser Striped-Swallow (Cecropis abyssinica)
Southern Black-Tit (Melaniparus niger)
Sombre Greenbul (Andropadus importunus)
Terrestrial Brownbul (Phyllastrephus terrestris)
Common Bulbul (Pycnonotus barbatus)
Cape Crombec (Sylvietta rufescens)
Bar-throated Apalis (Apalis thoracica)
Green-backed Camaroptera (Camaroptera brachyura)
Piping Cisticola (Cisticola fulvicapilla)
Tawny-flanked Prinia (Prinia subflava)
Cape White-eye (Zosterops pallidus)
Fiscal Flycatcher (Sigelus silens)
Dusky-brown Flycatcher (Muscicapa adusta)
Red-backed Scrub-Robin (Cercotrichas leucophrys)
Cape Robin-Chat (Cossypha caffra)
Kurrichane Thrush (Turdus libonyana)
Olive Thrush (Turdus olivaceus)
Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis)
Cape Glossy-Starling (Lamprotornis nitens)
Collared Sunbird (Hedydipna collaris)
Amethyst Sunbird (Chalcomitra amethystina)
White-breasted Sunbird (Cinnyris talatala)
Cape Wagtail (Motacilla capensis)
Golden-breasted Bunting (Emberiza flaviventris)
Yellow-fronted Canary (Serinus mozambicus)
Brimstone Canary (Serinus sulphuratus)
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
Cape Sparrow (Passer melanurus)
Southern Grey-headed Sparrow (Passer diffusus)
Spectacled Weaver (Ploceus ocularis)
Village Weaver (Ploceus cucullatus)
Red-billed Quelea (Quelea quelea)
Grosbeak Weaver (Amblyospiza albifrons)
Common Waxbill (Estrilda astrild)
Blue-breasted Cordonbleu (Uraeginthus angolensis)
African Firefinch (Lagonosticta rubricata)
Bronze Mannikin (Spermestes cucullatus)
Pin-tailed Whydah (Vidua macroura)

Novembers creatures

Orange Ground-thrush   Zoothera gurneyi

Hoopoe

a beautifully onomatopoeic name   Upupa  epops (africana)

Hottentot golden mole   Amblysomus hottentotus

In the last month the spring season has been a wet and unpredictable one.  Many of the long-time residents here have remarked that it wetter than usual.  We have been hit by the occasional spectacular thunderstorm, but more generally rain fronts have come in frequently and randomly. The Thousand Hills area has been shrouded in low cloud and soppy mist often and for days on end.

When he sun comes out and all that moisture becomes airbourne the 33 degrees of humid heat is an entomological paradise.  This year, the 10 November marked the first mass emergence of termite alates in the Scottburgh neighbourhood.  They gathered in a swarm of hundreds on our back yard wall against the security light. And while the geckos gorged, I enjoyed snacking on this nutritious and neglected food.  Down the street, countless swarms gathered at street lights, and soon the roads became snowed in shedded wings.

another great name, this time in Zulu:  Shongololo  =  millipede

shongololo...

SHONGOLOLO !

Spring-tastic

On the first of July

And now mid-September

White-throated Swallow with Darvill setting

Klaas' Cuckoo

 

Brubru amongst the camelfoot flowers

lemon blossoms

The seasons are a changing.  After a long, glorious dry, dry winter there is a definite ominous feel to the approach of summer.  Recent weeks have been quite wet, interspersed with the odd humid heat wave.  Earlier in September we had a berg wind come through that pushed the mercury to 34 degrees… and I have been warned that that is just a teaser for summer. Pietermaritzburg can hit 45+ degrees - what have I done!?

The wet weather, warmer temperatures, and longer days are culminating in a greening of the landscape.  Grass is growing rapidly after widespread burning, trees are sprouting, and flowers blooming.  Several inter-african migrants have arrived.  At Darvill this month ‘we’ ringed several White-throated Swallows, and a Klaas’ Cuckoo.  Also, the arrival of the very aerial and abundant Yellow-billed Kites has really put me off my stride – I still have to glance at every one while driving and walking anywhere… eventually will I be able to subconsciously rule out any chance of them being confused with Crowned Eagles in the sky? 


Tonight we went out 'frogging', to collect specimens for a frog identification practical held for the 222 Vertebrate Zoology course.  The field guide to amphibians is a beautiful book, and hopefully it can be added to my growing library of field guides, snuggling up next to my equally stunning guide to reptiles.  Speaking of which.  I have noticed a few skinks here and there and the occasional Blue-headed Agama in the UKZN botanic garden.  Someday soon the snakes will come out.  Yay !