Tag Archives: nature

Crested Francolin

Dendroperdix sephaena

Crested Francolins inhabit dense woodlands, often in riverine areas and with a sparse grass cover, and areas of thicket in more open savannas. They follow an omnivorous diet, including insects, seeds, leaves, shoots and fruits and berries according to whatever is most easily available in the season. Adults weigh from 240 to 460g and are about 33cm long.

During the breeding season, which stretches through spring and summer, Crested Francolins are usually seen in monogamous pairs or small family parties, forming mixed groups of up to 7 birds at other times. Their nests are shallow scrapes in the ground lined with soft plant material, well hidden among grass and shrubs. Clutches consisting of 3-7 eggs are incubated by the female for around 3 weeks. The chicks are precocious and leave the nest about two hours after hatching to start foraging with their parents.

The Crested Francolin is distributed over much of eastern and southern Africa, and considered of least concern by the IUCN. In South Africa it occurs commonly in the provinces of Kwazulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Gauteng and North West.

Brett Hilton-Barber and Lou Arthur in their guide to birding in Kruger Park mentions an apparent symbiotic relationship between African Wild Dogs and Crested Francolins, in which the francolins are allowed to peck up scraps of leftover meat around wild dog dens without harrassment, and in turn provide advance warning to the pack of dogs whenever dangerous predators are close to their den.

The distinctive call of the Crested Francolin is often heard at sunrise in many of our favourite wild places.

Crested Francolin

Crested francolin

Crested Francolin chick

Feathered friends visiting our cottage at Shingwedzi: Crested Francolin

Crested Francolin

Crested Francolins

Crested Francolin

Crested Francolin (photo by Joubert)

Crested Francolins

Crested Francolin

Crested Francolins

Crested Francolin hen and chicks

Crested Francolin

African Wattled Lapwing

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Vanellus senegallus

African Wattled Lapwings are diurnal birds, usually seen singly, in pairs or small groups. Larger aggregations of 20 to 60 birds form occasionally in response to favourable local conditions. They feed on insects and grass seeds, and inhabit areas of short grass in marshes, flooded grasslands, and the edges of lakes, dams and rivers but are also found at times in dry grasslands, savannas and agricultural and sports fields and are particularly attracted to recently burnt areas. The African Wattled Lapwing is the biggest plover in Africa, and weigh around 250g with a wingspan of up to 86cm.

African Wattled Lapwings nest on the ground in shallow depressions scraped among weeds or short grass, almost always near water, during spring and summer. The nest is lined with grass, pebbles or dry dung before a clutch of 2-4 eggs are laid. Both parents incubate the eggs for around 4 weeks, and although the chicks fledge at about 40 days old, they remain with their parents until the next breeding season starts. Pairs are highly territorial.

Due to its wide distribution over much of sub-Saharan Africa, and an apparently stable population, the IUCN considers the African Wattled Lapwing of least concern. In South Africa they are found in the north-east of the country, particularly in Kwazulu-Natal and on the Highveld (NE Free State, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, SW Limpopo and the North West Province)

African Wattled Lapwing

African Wattled Lapwing adult

African Wattled Lapwing chick

African Wattled Lapwing

African Wattled Lapwing (immature)

African Wattled Lapwing

African Wattled Lapwings

Wattled Lapwing

Wattled Lapwing (photo by Joubert)

Wattled Lapwings

African Wattled Lapwing

African Wattled Lapwing at her nest with eggs

African Wattled Lapwing nest with eggs

African Wattled Lapwing (photo by Joubert)

African Wattled Lapwing at her nest with egg

African Wattled Lapwing

Wattled Lapwing

African Wattled Lapwing

African Wattled Lapwing covered in frost

Wattled Lapwing

Wattled Lapwing (photo by Joubert)

African Wattled Lapwing (photo by Joubert)

African Wattled Lapwing

Wattled Lapwing

Breathing in our Natural Heritage at Marakele

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In South Africa, we celebrate the 24th of September as “Heritage Day”, and of course to us de Wets our country’s natural heritage is our biggest pride. What better way then to spend the Heritage Day long weekend than at a place as beautiful as Marakele National Park, accompanied by a group of wonderful friends?

Marakele’s varied landscapes makes for such a diverse experience – from the top of the Waterberg massif to the plains of Kwaggasvlakte below. A few fires passed through the area some days before our visit (a quite natural occurrence in African savannas, to which animal and plant life alike are perfectly adapted) and as soon as the first rains of spring fall Marakele should be transformed into a green paradise again.

Marakele sunrise

Marakele scenery

Marakele stream crossing

Dusty road at sunset

Marakele scenery

Marakele stream crossing (near Tlopi)

Marakele scenery

Bollonoto waterhole near Bontle

Marakele scenery

Milky Way above Marakele

Thutong view

There’s no doubt in our mind that Marakele’s populations of the popular “Big Five” animals must be growing at a good rate. We’ve never seen so many elephants on any of our previous visits to this Park, and this latest visit also delivered us our first encounters with both Marakele’s buffaloes and lions. It is now only the Park’s leopards that still elude us.

Elephant mock-charge

Old buffalo bull

Lioness and mate

Lion

Baby elephant show-off

White Rhinoceros

Old matriarch

Tiny new herd member

Elephant youngster

White rhinos

Heavyweights on the run

By now our regular readers will know that we love walking around after dark looking for nocturnal creatures, and in this respect the Thutong Environmental Education Centre where we stayed delivered a range of arachnid species!

Giant spider

Baby scorpion

Solifuge a.k.a. Sun Spider

We’ve already shared with you a series of photos of a wasp dragging a paralysed caterpillar to a nesting tunnel for its young to feed on – have a look here for the complete set.

Wasp and prey

Marakele means “a place of sanctuary”, and it is as true for human visitors as it is for the immense collection of wildlife that calls this gem of a place home!

Ostrich at Bollonoto

White-fronted Bee-eater

Little Bee-eater

Golden-tailed Woodpecker

Yellow-throated Bush Sparrow

Southern Black Flycatcher

Female Red-billed Quelea

Red-billed Oxpecker

Kudu cow

Kudu calves

Nyala calf

Bushbuck ewe

Plains Zebra

Blue Wildebeest

Impala

A big group of people needs a big place to stay. Marakele’s Thutong Environmental Education Centre is a dormitory-style facility built purposely to accommodate visiting school groups, however it is available for private groups when not being used by school children. Provided is six double rooms with en-suite bathrooms for the teachers, with a maximum of 128 children that can be accommodated in 16 seperate rooms with 8 bunk beds in each. Thutong also has a decently equipped kitchen to cook for that many mouths, and a large hall and fireplace. It is securely fenced – the necessity for which we clearly understood when we found lion tracks right outside the gate one morning!

Thutong Environmental Education Centre, Marakele National Park, September 2017

Want to learn more about Marakele National Park? Why not scroll through all our posts about this special place, here.

Hardworking Wasp

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Just to prove that a visit to a game reserve isn’t all about the “hairies and scaries”, one of the most memorable sightings of the trip we took to Marakele National Park last weekend wasn’t of one of the “Big Five” or another large mammal, bird or reptile. Instead, we watched in awe as a wasp carried (sometimes through the air, but mostly along the ground) a large, paralysed caterpillar to a specially prepared tunnel. In there, the wasp’s young can grow to adulthood by feeding on the hapless immature insect.

Thread-waisted Wasp and caterpillar prey at Marakele

Thread-waisted Wasp closing up the nesting tunnel after depositing the caterpillar and laying the egg (at Marakele NP)

African Green Pigeon

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Treron calvus

You’d be forgiven for confusing the African Green Pigeon with a parrot at first glance, especially if you glimpse these colourful birds clambering among the branches or hanging upside down in the canopies of tall trees, foraging for fruit and seeds! African Green Pigeons inhabit forests, woodland, dense savannas (usually along river courses) and well-planted parks and gardens populated by various fruiting trees, showing a special fondness for wild figs (genus Ficus) and jackalberry (Diospyros). Adult African Green Pigeons are between 25 and 29cm long and weigh between 210 and 250g.

African Green Pigeon females build flimsy nests (of twigs and leaves gathered by the male) in the forks of trees at any time of year (with a peak in early summer in South Africa), the female incubating the small clutch (usually only 1 or 2 eggs) for around two weeks. The young pigeons leave the nest around two weeks after hatching. They are gregarious, and occur in small groups or flocks numbering up to 50 or more.

In South Africa, African Green Pigeons are common along the coast in the Eastern Cape, through much of Kwazulu-Natal, and into the bushveld and lowveld regions of Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Gauteng. North of our borders this species occurs widely over tropical Africa south of the Sahara. The IUCN considers them to be of least concern, though noting that loss of habitat and hunting is causing their overall population to decline.

African Green Pigeon

African Green Pigeon in a Jackalberry

Adult African Green Pigeon

African Green Pigeon

Back from Marakele

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If you thought we were a little quiet the last few days, you’d be right. We spent the Heritage Day long weekend enjoying our natural heritage and the company of good friends at Marakele National Park. Here’s just a little sample of some of what we experienced, with a promise of more to come later in the week.

White Rhinoceros

Baby scorpion

Giant spider

Baby elephant show-off

Old buffalo bull

Marakele scenery

Elephant mock-charge

Marakele sunrise

Lion

Lioness and mate

Thread-waisted Wasp and prey at Marakele National Park

Banded Mongoose

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Mungos mungo

The diurnal Banded Mongoose inhabits woodland and savanna, showing a strong preference for areas along rivers and marshes with an abundance of logs and termite mounds. These little carnivores prey on insects (especially dung beetles and their larvae), other invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles (including venomous snakes), birds, eggs and rodents, and occasionally also eat fruit. They grow to longer than half a metre, and weigh between 600g and 2kg.

Banded Mongooses live in troops usually numbering from 5 to 30 though exceptionally up to 75, roaming a small home range of up to 4km², within which they have a number of dens used intermittently. These dens are usually holes dug by themselves or other animals, often in termite mounds, or crevices in rocky hills. Though they are not strictly territorial, conflict does sometimes erupt when neighbouring troops meet. Banded Mongooses often associate with warthogs and baboons.

Banded Mongoose pups are born at anytime of the year, though usually in the spring or summer. Most females in the troop get babies at more or less the same time, and the little ones will drink from any lactating female. Litters number from 2 to 8, and the babies tag along with the troop when they go searching for food from about 5 weeks old. Fewer than half of the babies live to 3 months of age, though they can live to between 8 and 13 years. Large raptors and medium-sized mammalian carnivores (jackals, servals, wild dogs, etc.) pose the biggest threat to Banded Mongooses.

The Banded Mongoose has a wide distribution over most of Sub-Saharan Africa, although they are rare in West Africa and absent from the equatorial forests of Central Africa and the arid south-west of the continent. The IUCN regards it as being of least concern, siting its wide distribution, stable and common populations in suitable habitat, presence in major conservation areas and adaptability to human encroachment. In South Africa they are found in the provinces of Kwazulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Gauteng and North West.

Banded mongoose

Banded Mongoose

You’ll often see troops of banded mongoose crossing roads in the Kwaggasvlakte section of Marakele National Park

Banded mongoose troop at Skukuza

Banded mongoose

Banded mongooses in the road

Banded mongooses at the curbside in St. Lucia town

Banded mongoose in Skukuza

Banded Mongoose

Banded Mongooses doing their early morning rounds Crocodile Bridge Rest Camp

Banded Mongoose

Several groups of Banded Mongooses are to be seen in the Kwaggasvlakte section of the Park

Banded Mongooses

Banded Mongoose

Banded Mongooses

Banded Mongoose

Nylsvley Nature Reserve

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Almost 180 years ago, the Voortrekkers on their Great Trek northwards (away from the British colony in the Cape), reached what they thought was the source of the River Nile in what is today South Africa’s Limpopo Province. Of course they were still thousands of miles away from the real Nile, but the name stuck.

Our Nyl River is a minor tributary of the Limpopo, but forms one of South Africa’s largest and most pristine wetland areas – an area 70km long and 7km wide at its widest point. In years of exceptional rainfall (normally about once in ten years) the total inundated area covers as much as 160km². In 1974 the provincial government established the Nylsvley Nature Reserve (39km² in size) to protect a portion of this delicate ecosystem, which was recognised as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar convention in 1998.

Nylsvley sunrise

Joubert and I decided to pay the reserve a quick one night visit this past weekend.

Nylsvley’s motto reads “Nylsvley is for the birds” and considering that this relatively small reserve has an impressive list of over 380 recorded bird species, it is certainly most fitting. Nylsvley is an important breeding habitat for over 100 kinds of waterbirds (more than any other wetland in the country), many of which is considered rare or range restricted in South Africa. While the rainy season hasn’t yet started and most summer migrants are yet to arrive, we still managed to identify 79 species of birds in the little over 24 hours we spent at Nylsvley. We’d dearly want to return in late summer, once the wetland has been flooded, in anticipation of the spectacle of a reported 80,000 waterbirds congregating at Nylsvley.

Rufous-naped Lark

African Snipe

Amethyst Sunbird

Black-chested Snake Eagle

Black-collared Barbet

Cardinal Woodpecker

Coqui Francolin (female)

Coqui Francolin (male)

Crested Francolins

Fork-tailed Drongo

Glossy Ibises in flight over Vogelfontein

Golden-tailed Woodpecker

Grey Go-away Bird

Grey Heron

African Grey Hornbill

Blue-billed Teals

Lizard Buzzard

Marabous circling above Vogelfontein

Northern Black Korhaan

Orange-breasted Bushshrike and Chinspot Batis

Ostrich family

Secretary Bird

Southern Black Tit

Southern Boubou

Large congregation of Spur-winged Geese at Vogelfontein

Spur-winged Goose coming in to land

Swainson’s Spurfowl

Well camouflaged White-browed Scrub Robin

White-throated Swallow

Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill

And while pride of place at Nylsvley really does go to the birdlife, the reserve is also home to thousands of invertebrate species (including 55 kinds of dragonflies and 194 kinds of butterflies), 13 kinds of fish, 23 kinds of amphibians, 58 reptile species (including many venomous snakes, so wear sensible shoes when hiking!) and 77 species of mammals (among which sizable populations of rare roan antelope and tsessebe). Vegetation comprises broad-leaved woodlands, thornveld, grassland and of course the floodplains, and over 600 species of plant have been recorded in the reserve.

Blue wildebeest

Bushbuck

Tower of giraffes

Giraffe

Big herd of roan antelope on the floodplain at Vogelfonteinin Nylsvley Nature Reserve

Roan Antelope Bull

Scrub Hare

Steenbok ewe

Tsessebes

Warthog

Waterbuck bull

Nylsvley Nature Reserve falls under the jurisdiction of the Limpopo Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism, with the NGO Friends of Nylsvley playing an active role in the protection of the reserve and extended floodplain. Visitors to the reserve can overnight in the rustic camping area (6 shady sites), a dormitory with space for 36 people, or in one of the 5 chalets (4×2 bed, 1×6 bed). Other facilities in the reserve include a picnic area for day visitors, a restaurant, three bird-viewing hides, a limited road network (which can be carefully negotiated in a sedan), and an extensive network of hiking trails. The services of expert guides can be arranged through the reserve’s reception office. Most other services and shops are available in the nearby towns of Modimolle (formerly Nylstroom) and Mookgopong (Naboomspruit).

Entrance Gate at Nylsvley Nature Reserve

Nylsvley Campsite

Camping at Nylsvley Nature reserve, September 2017

What is camping without a fire?

Spoonbill Restaurant

The three “Duck Den” Chalets

The Cormorant “suite”

Heron House

Interesting directional post at the Jacana Hide

A litle pond is all that remains presently at Jacana Hide – hopefully the rains are not far off!

Crake Hide at the Vogelfontein floodplain

View over Vogelfontein wetland from Crake Hide

Nylsvley is an easy 170km away from us in Pretoria, along the N1 and R101 highways to the north.

Pretoria to Nylsvley along the N1 and R101

Father & Son Time at Nylsvley

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This past weekend Joubert and I took a short camping breakaway to a new destination for us; the Nylsvley Nature Reserve in Limpopo Province.

Father and son time at Nylsvley

Of course we’ll tell you more about our trip, and the reserve, in an upcoming edition of de Wets Wild!

Verreaux’s Eagle

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Aquila verreauxii

The Verreaux’s Eagle (or Black Eagle) is a denizen of rocky hills and mountains, often surrounded by savanna, grasslands or arid scrub, from sea level to 5000m high – the favoured habitat of its most common prey species; the rock hyrax (dassie), which makes up between 60% and 90% of their diet. They will also hunt other mammals (up to the size of springbok and baboons), reptiles (especially tortoises, which they drop from on high so that the carapace shatters) and birds, but they have seldom been seen to eat carrion. Verreaux’s Eagle pairs often hunt together; one bird flushing the prey while the other scoops it up, and then sharing their prey. They do most of their hunting in the early morning and late afternoon, when the hyraxes are sunning themselves on exposed rocks.

With a wingspan of up to 2.3 metres and a weight of between 3 and 7kg, the Verreaux’s Eagle is one of the three biggest eagles to be found in South Africa (the others being the Crowned and Martial Eagles). Females are slightly larger than males.

Verreaux’s Eagles pair for life, and pairs are fiercely defensive of their territories. Their massive stick nests are usually built on cliff ledges (sometimes on equally inaccessible trees or man-made structures). In South Africa they usually start breeding during winter. Two eggs are laid and mostly incubated by the female for 44-48 days, while her mate brings food to her on the nest. The stronger (usually oldest) chick invariably kills, and sometimes eat, its weaker sibling within a few days of hatching. The young eagle starts flying at about three months old and becomes independent of its parents about 7 months after hatching. Immature Black Eagles roam widely before settling down with a mate.

Verreaux’s Eagles are distributed over large areas of East, Central and Southern Africa, wherever suitable mountainous habitat and sufficient populations of dassies are found. With a stable population estimated in the tens of thousands, the IUCN considers the species of least concern. In South Africa, where they occur in all provinces, Verreaux’s Eagles are sometimes hunted due to an undeserved reputation as a threat to small stock, though farmers have of late realised the benefit of these eagles keeping dassie populations under control. In traditional African folklore many people regard them as a messenger from the ancestors.

A pair of Black Eagles have been resident at Johannesburg’s Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens since the 1970’s, offering probably the most easily accessible viewing of this majestic raptor.