Wahlberg’s Bush Cricket

Clonia wahlbergii

I wish I was brave enough to put one of these insects on my hand and show you just how gigantic they are. But I am not… And my fear isn’t entirely irrational as these katydids, whose bodies measure up to 7cm without including any appendages in the calculation, are reported to have a very nasty bite. Something which I hope never to have to put to the test.

Clonia walhbergii is a nocturnal predator, ferociously feeding on large insects and other invertebrates unlucky enough to cross its path. In South Africa this species is found from the Eastern Cape, through the coastal and bushveld areas of Kwazulu-Natal, the Lowveld of Mpumalanga and Limpopo Province, along the Limpopo Valley right through to the Kalahari regions of North West and the Northern Cape, occurring in habitats that varies from forest margins to arid savanna. It seems not much is known about their reproductive cycle except that eggs are laid in the ground.

With the kind help of wildlife photographer Brian Pettit (http://www.naturepicturesworldwide.com/ & https://www.zambezicruisesafaris.com/our-blog/), this massive insect was identified as the bush cricket Clonia wahlbergii

A huge bush cricket (Clonia wahlbergii) that shared our open-air shower at Mapungubwe National Park

Bush Cricket (Clonia wahlbergii)

Wahlberg’s Bush Cricket

Black Stork

26 Replies

Ciconia nigra

The Black Stork is a very widely distributed species, occurring in Africa, Europe and Asia, and globally assessed as being of least concern by the IUCN despite their populations coming under pressure from loss of habitat and hunting. Although occurring all over the country they are not particularly common in South Africa either and it is estimated that the total population occurring south of the Zambezi and Kunene Rivers is in the region of about a thousand breeding pairs of which only 200 or so occur in our country, qualifying for a local conservation classification of “near threatened”. Although most populations of Black Stork are migratory that is not the case with Southern Africa’s birds which remain in the subregion throughout the year and only move around locally. In our experience the Kruger National Park is the most reliable area to find Black Storks in South Africa.

Black Storks are closely associated with wetlands, swamps, rivers, lagoons, estuaries and inundated grasslands and, as can probably be deduced from their preferred habitat, subsists mainly on an aquatic diet ranging from fish and amphibians to insects and other invertebrates sourced by wading in shallow water. They are usually found alone or in pairs, though congregations numbering into the hundreds have been seen on occasion.

Black Storks are monogamous, and pairs may even have a life-long bond. Their nests are rough platforms of sticks and reeds built on ledges and cliffs, often used for several years. The local breeding season spans the autumn and winter months, typically periods during which most of this country experiences drier weather making it easier to catch prey in dwindling pools of water. Clutches contain as many as five eggs, with incubation by both parents lasting over a month. The chicks fledge at between 2 and 3 months after hatching, becoming independent of their parents soon after. Black Storks may live to 20 years old in the wild, with up to 36 years recorded in captivity. Fully grown adults are magnificent birds, standing a metre high with a wingspan of around 1.5m.

Black Storks

Black Stork

Black and Woolly-necked Storks

Black Stork

Black Stork (photo by Joubert)

Black Storks

Turner’s Thick-toed Gecko

21 Replies

Chondrodactylus turneri

Also known as Turner’s Giant Gecko for its impressive size (adults measure up to 10cm in length excluding their tail), Turner’s Thick-toed Gecko is a solitary, nocturnal species occurring in semi-desert and arid savannas, usually in rocky outcrops but also occasionally in or around houses. In the spring season females lay 2 or 3 clutches of 2 eggs each in holes dug in the sand. The eggs take 2 to 3 months to hatch. Turner’s Thick-toed Gecko is a carnivore, feeding primarily on insects and other invertebrates. In South Africa, this species is found in parts of Mpumalanga, Limpopo, the North West and Northern Cape provinces.

Turner’s Giant Gecko

Baby Turner’s Giant Gecko

Turner’s Giant Gecko

Turner’s Thick-toed Gecko

Turner’s Thick-toed Gecko in Crocodile Bridge Rest Camp

Turner’s Thick-toed Gecko

We think this might be a baby Turner’s Thick-toed Gecko (photo by Joubert)

Turner’s Thick-toed Gecko

Wattled Starling

19 Replies

Creatophora cinerea

Certainly one of our most social and numerous starlings, the Wattled Starling is also a nomadic bird that moves around in large flocks, following surges in insect numbers and seeding grasses, their principal foodstuffs, that often follow on good rains. They’re well known for following large grazing herbivores, eagerly pecking up insects disturbed by the movement of the large animals through the vegetation. Wattled Starlings are mostly found in open habitats with short grasscover, ranging from semi-deserts to savannas and open woodland.

Wattled Starlings nest colonially, with monogamous pairs building their untidy ball-shaped stick-nests in close vicinity to one another in thorny trees, with their breeding season spanning most of spring and summer. The parents take turns to incubate the clutch of 2-5 eggs over a period of only 11 days and co-operate to feed the chicks, which leave the nest about two weeks after hatching without being able to fly yet. As a result the nesting colonies are often heavily predated on by birds of prey and other meat-eaters for these easy pickings. Fully grown adults weigh in at about 70g and measure around 21cm in length. The pronounced wattles and brightly coloured facial features of the males are seen only during the breeding season, with older males having the most impressive appearance.

Wattled Starlings are commonly recorded in all South Africa’s provinces, with its wider distribution stretching throughout southern, central and eastern Africa to Ethiopia and Somalia. The IUCN considers the Wattled Starling to be of least concern.

Wattled Starling

Wattled Starlings

Wattled Starling (male in breeding colours)

Wattled Starling male

Wattled Starling

Wattled Starlings

Wattled Starling

Red-billed Buffalo Weaver

17 Replies

Bubalornis niger

Weighing around 78g and measuring 23cm in length, the Red-billed Buffalo Weaver is one of the largest members of the weaver-family (Ploceidae) occurring in South Africa. They occur in dry savannas and open woodlands, showing a preference for areas dominated by thorny trees and heavily grazed areas, often near human habitation. It does most of its foraging on the ground with insects and other invertebrates, seeds and fruit making up the bulk of its diet.

Reb-billed Buffalo Weavers are social birds living in colonies of varying size. In these colonies the adult males have a dominance hierarchy, with the most dominant male having the biggest harem of females. Their nests are huge constructions of thorny twigs with several nest chambers, and often times several of these “lodges” are placed together in the same large tree, utility pole or windpump. Red-billed Buffalo Weavers breed from early spring to late autumn. The females take full responsibility for incubating the clutch of 2-4 eggs over a two-week period, and also care for the chicks until they leave the nest about 3 weeks after hatching.

Being a species that is actually benefited by agriculture and overgrazing, the Red-billed Buffalo Weaver is considered of least concern by the IUCN. They occur in two separate populations in Africa – one in east Africa and the other in southern Africa. In the RSA, Red-billed Buffalo Weavers occur from the Lowveld of Mpumalanga and Limpopo through Gauteng and the North West to the thorny savannas of the Northern Cape.

Red-billed Buffalo Weaver

Red-billed Buffalo Weaver in Satara

Red-billed Buffalo Weaver

Baobab with Buffalo Weaver nests

Buffalo Weaver nest

Red-billed Buffalo Weaver nest

Red-billed Buffalo Weaver

Red-billed Buffalo Weaver (photo by Joubert)

Red-billed Buffalo Weaver

Common Purple Tip Butterfly

24 Replies

Colotis ione

The Common , or Bushveld, Purple Tip is another one of our South African butterflies where the males and females look so different that it would be very easy to confuse them for entirely different species – even within each of the sexes there’s a great variation of colour combinations that become more or less pronounced in the dry or wet season, making for a very tricky identification indeed! With a wingspan of around 5cm the Common Purple Tip is one of the larger species of the “tips” butterflies (genus Colotis).

These striking butterflies are on the wing throughout the year and, being a savanna species, in South Africa occur from the southern reaches of Kwazulu-Natal into the Lowveld and Bushveld regions of Mpumalanga, Limpopo and North West Province. They’re also widely distributed through the savanna areas of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. The larvae feed on the leaves of plants from the Boscia, Maerua and Capparis genuses.

Mating Purple Tips

Purple Tip male

Common Purple Tip male

Common Purple Tip female

Female Purple Tip (photo by Joubert)

Common Purple Tip female

Common Purple Tip butterfly

Common Purple Tips (photo by Joubert)

Common Purple Tips

Common Purple Tip

Common Purple Tip male

Common Purple Tip female

Common Purple Tip

Cut-throat Finch

29 Replies

Amadina fasciata

The Cut-throat Finch is a common, though inconspicuous, inhabitant of Africa’s savannas and open woodlands, occurring in a band through the Sahel from Senegal to Ethiopia and thence southwards to South Africa, where they are to be found in Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Gauteng and parts of the North West Province. Given its wide distribution and relative abundance, the IUCN considers the Cut-throat Finch to be of least concern though sadly these birds are targeted by the cagebird trade. Seeds and termites form the majority of this finch’s diet – they are subject to nomadic movements in response to the rains and resultant increase in their favourite foods through their range. They require access to reliable water sources.

These small finches; they weigh only about 18g, are found in pairs or small flocks, often associating with other small seed-eating birds. In the breeding season, which spans the summer and autumn months, monogamous Cut-throat Finch pairs use the abandoned nests of other birds, especially weavers, to nest in, laying clutches of 2-7 eggs that hatch after a two-week long incubation period in which both parents take part. The chicks leave the nest about 3 weeks after hatching.

Hybrids between the Cut-throat Finch and the closely-related Red-headed Finch has been recorded in areas where their distribution overlaps.

Cut-throat Finch female

Cut-throat Finch male

Cut-throat Finch female

Cut-throat Finch pair – the male on the right

Cut-throat Finch female

Cut-throat Finch male

Cut-throat Finch female

Cut-throat Finch pair

Cut-throat Finch male

Cut-throat Finch

Leprous Grasshopper

17 Replies

Phymateus leprosus

A close relative of the Green Milkweed Locust, the Leprous Grasshopper is equally adept at making my skin crawl, especially the adults. These large and scary locusts have a wide habitat tolerance, occuring from the dry Great Karoo to the mesic east coast and into the Lowveld. Their gregarious nymphs congregate and move in colourful clusters, advertising their poisonous nature by their bold colouration. Indeed, so poisonous are these grasshoppers that human fatalities from ingesting them has been recorded. This toxicity stem from their preferred foodplants from the milkweed family, though they can be a pest in young citrus trees as well. For an insect, Leprous Grasshoppers have a long lifecycle and are slow-growing; eggs may take 6 months to hatch after which it takes a year for the nymphs to develop to adulthood. The adults may live for up to 8 months.

Leprous Grasshopper

Leprous Grasshopper nymphs

Leprous Grasshopper nymph

Leprous Grasshopper nymphs

Leprous Grasshoppers

Leprous Grasshopper

Brown-headed Parrot

15 Replies

Poicephalus cryptoxanthus

Many people are surprised to learn that South Africa has a few indigenous species of parrot occurring within our borders. Most of these have limited distributions, some are threatened, and they’re all far less colourful than those occurring in more tropical environments. The Brown-headed Parrot is one of the more frequently encountered local parrot species and is found mainly in the Lowveld of Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces, principally covered by the Kruger National Park where the population numbers approximately 2,500, and extending marginally into the north of Kwazulu-Natal with most records there coming from in and around uMkhuze Game Reserve. They’re also found through Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania to coastal Kenya.

Brown-headed Parrots inhabit woodland and riverine forests, and follow a varied and mainly vegetarian diet, feeding on fruits and berries, seeds and nuts, flowers, nectar and fresh new shoots as they clamber through the branches in the canopy and occasionally being considered a pest in orchards. They need to drink fresh water on a daily basis.

Gregarious by nature, Brown-headed Parrots keep in small flocks numbering between 4 and 12 (sometimes up to 200!) and form monogamous pairs in the autumn breeding period (some sources indicate that the pair-bond lasts throughout the year). Their preferred nests are holes in trees, usually quite high above the ground and often used year after year, in which the female incubates a clutch of 2 – 4 eggs over a 4-week period while being cared for by the male. The chicks leave the nest at about two months old, though they can’t really fly yet and hide-away in dense foliage near the abandoned nest. They only become independent from at least another month onwards. Fully grown, Brown-headed Parrots measure about 23cm in length and weigh about 140g.

Presently, the IUCN lists the Brown-headed Parrot as being of least concern. Sadly though their populations are declining through habitat loss and an escalation in trapping for the cagebird trade and they are now uncommon outside of the large conservation areas within their range.

Brown-headed Parrot

Brown-headed Parrot (photo by Joubert)

Brown-headed Parrot

Respite from the pandemic; Rietvlei 18 June 2020

30 Replies

Early morning sunshine over Rietvlei

Strongly flowing stream feeding the Rietvlei Dam

Winter scenery at Rietvlei

Under South Africa’s current “COVID-19 lockdown restrictions” our nature reserves and national parks are allowed to open their gates to local day visitors, and so Joubert and I used the opportunity to visit Pretoria’s Rietvlei Nature Reserve this past week (Marilize is back at work at the local Primary School). It was our first time out in natural surroundings since our visit to the Royal Natal Park in March and, despite all the new formalities of temperature checks and health declarations at the entrance and the constant aggravation of face masks fogging up the lenses of my glasses in the crisp winter’s air, still an experience to be treasured – perhaps even more so now that it is clear how easily freedoms like these are forfeited in a time of crisis. Being just 13km from our home and surrounded by development in South Africa’s most industrialised province, it is easy to underestimate the value of Rietvlei as a place where tired souls can find a temporary reprieve from the onslaught of seemingly ever escalating bad news.