Tag Archives: outdoors

Canary Creeper

6 Replies

Senecio tamoides

Another plants that grows naturally in South Africa’s wild places but has become a favourite in gardens the world over is the Canary Creeper with its splendid show of bright yellow flowers borne in summer and into autumn. In the wild it grows on forest edges and clearings along the coast from the Eastern Cape into Kwazulu-Natal and along the escarpment of Mpumalanga and Limpopo, and as its name suggests is a plant that scrambles over shrubs and along tree trunks and branches.

Canary Creeper
Canary Creeper
Canary Creeper
Canary Creeper
Canary Creeper
Canary Creeper
Canary Creeper
Canary Creeper
The bright flowers of the Canary Creeper

Two-spotted Tyrant Beetle

6 Replies

Anthia homoplata

The Two-spotted Tyrant Beetle is a large carnivorous insect about 5cm in length. They’re active by day and ferocious predators of other insects, using their strong mandibles to great effect. These beetles are found in a wide range of savanna and grassland habitats in all South Africa’s provinces and are also known locally as Oogpisters (“oog” being Afrikaans for eye, and the rest you can probably deduce from context) for their ability, shared with many other members of the genus, to spray a jet of formic acid with great accuracy up to 30cm far, this being potent enough to cause blindness in mammals and birds that attack the beetle.

Two-spotted Tyrant Beetle
Two-spotted Tyrant Beetle
Two-spotted Tyrant Beetle
Two-spotted Tyrant Beetle
Two-spotted Tyrant Beetle

Sanderling

7 Replies

Calidris alba

The Sanderling is a small wading bird that breeds in the Arctic Tundra, from northern Canada to Siberia, and then spends the non-breeding season along the coastlines of all the continents except Antarctica. They’re common along the South African seaboard between September and April annually. The IUCN estimates their population at about 700,000 and considers the Sanderling to be of least concern.

Sanderlings frequent sandy beaches and the banks of lagoons and wetlands, where they forage in small flocks, feeding on a wide variety of invertebrates in the wet sand and mud. Adult Sanderlings weigh approximately 55g and measure about 21cm in length.

Flock of Sanderlings
Flock of Sanderlings
Flock of Sanderlings
Flock of Sanderlings
Flock of Sanderlings
Flock of Sanderlings
Flock of Sanderlings
Flock of Sanderlings
Flock of Sanderlings
Flock of Sanderlings
Sanderling
Sanderling
Sanderling
Sanderling
Sanderling
Sanderlings
Sanderlings
Sanderlings
Sanderling

As cute as monkey business can be!

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These two baby Vervet Monkeys, seen near Skukuza in the Kruger National Park on a recent tour, were most endearing – it was rather disappointing when their mothers decided it was time to get moving into the bush, as it was great fun watching their antics!

Baby Vervet Monkeys
Baby Vervet Monkeys
Baby Vervet Monkey

I am a fully accredited and legally registered tour guide (with all the necessary insurance, professional drivers license and first aid certification) – don’t hesitate to reach out if you’d like me to arrange a guided tour of beautiful South Africa and all her natural wonders, like the Kruger National Park, for you as well, or even just to assist with your holiday reservations for our national parks and nature reserves throughout the country.

Greater Honeyguide

6 Replies

Indicator indicator

Famous for its habit of leading humans to beehives – bees, their larvae, honey and wax making up the bulk of its diet – the Greater Honeyguide is one of those birds that people find very interesting. The symbiotic relationship with a mammalian creature that’s brave and strong enough to open up a beehive for it was honed over millennia and is a powerful reminder that humans are supposed to be part of the ecology and not separate from it. The call it uses when leading a human to a beehive is very different to the song it uses to communicate with others of its species. There is a superstition in the bush that, if you’re not going to help the honeyguide get its meal this time next time it will lead you straight to a dangerous predator as punishment.

Greater Honeyguides live in a wide range of habitats, from fynbos to woodland and riverine forests and even plantations of exotic trees. They are brood parasites, meaning that the female sneaks a fertilised egg into the nest of a different species of bird (and destroys any of the host’s eggs in the process) so that they can raise the chick. This usually happens from early spring to mid-summer, during which time the honeyguide female can lay as many as 21 eggs in separate nests, with almost 40 kinds of host birds recorded in southern Africa alone. The honeyguide chicks usually depart their adoptive family at about 2 months of age.

Although they’re not common the Greater Honeyguide has a wide distribution across most of South Africa and beyond our borders inhabit most of sub-Saharan Africa, with the exception of deserts and the equatorial forests. The IUCN considers it to be a species of least concern.

Female Greater Honeyguide
Greater Honeyguide male
Female Greater Honeyguide

Just look at those teeth!

6 Replies

This vicious looking snarl, photographed on a recent tour of the Kruger National Park, is actually just a Spotted Hyena yawning. The jaws of a spotted hyena are extremely powerful and its dentition specifically adapted to be capable of crushing the long bones of even giraffe and buffalo carcasses.

Spotted Hyena showing a toothy grin
Spotted Hyena showing a toothy grin
Spotted Hyena showing a toothy grin
Spotted Hyena showing a toothy grin

Just to remind us that Spotted Hyenas are actually very interesting animals that certainly don’t deserve the bad PR they’ve been getting, here’s a photograph of two very cute cubs taken on the same trip.

Cute Spotted Hyena cubs

I am a fully accredited and legally registered tour guide (with all the necessary insurance, professional drivers license and first aid certification) – don’t hesitate to reach out if you’d like me to arrange a guided tour of beautiful South Africa and all her natural wonders, like the Kruger National Park, for you as well, or even just to assist with your holiday reservations for our national parks and nature reserves throughout the country.

 

 

Southern African Vlei Rat

8 Replies

Otomys irroratus

The Southern African Vlei Rat is found in South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The species is closely associated with wet and marshy areas in grassland and heathland, often on mountains and hillsides, feeding mainly on fresh shoots of grasses, reeds and sedges. Like others of the family the Southern African Vlei Rat is diurnal and move along singly or in family groups using well worn pathways radiating from their nest, built in a thicket using a variety of plant materials.

The Southern African Vlei Rat is extremely fertile and females may have up to 7 litters of as many as 7 babies each in a year. The babies are weaned by the time they’re between 2 and 3 weeks old and females are sexually mature before they’re 3 months of age. Fully grown adults weigh around 120g and measure about 25cm in length (including their tail). They have a life expectancy of less than 2 years in the wild and are a favourite prey of a wide range of predatory mammals and birds.

Southern African Vlei Rat
Southern African Vlei Rat
Southern African Vlei Rat
Southern African Vlei Rat
Southern African Vlei Rat
Southern African Vlei Rat

Toad Tree

9 Replies

Tabernaemontana elegans

The Toad Tree gets its name from its characteristic warty green fruit’s superficial resemblance to the amphibian. They’re usually found in the form of a shrub or small tree up to 5m tall, growing along riverbanks in the Lowveld or the coastal forests of Kwazulu-Natal. Toad Trees flower in our summer months. The ripe fruit, often still on the plant, split open to reveal the pulp inside, which is eaten by a range of animals and birds, including people and black rhinos. Most browsing animals will also feed on the leaves. Other parts of the plant is sometimes used in traditional medicine though some of these have been found to be toxic.

Toad Tree pods
Toad Tree pods
Toad Tree blossoms
Opened Toad Tree pods
Toad Tree leaves

Peregrine Falcon

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Falco peregrinus

The Peregrine Falcon is a cosmopolitan bird, found on every continent except Antarctica. According to the IUCN the species is growing in number and therefore considered to be of least concern. Though widely distributed in South Africa they’re not common here. Most local birds are resident throughout the year, though some migrants join them during our summer months.

Peregrine Falcons are fond of mountainous areas, where they breed on the cliffs. In urban locations city skyscrapers are useful alternatives to cliffs and as a result they can be a very effective biological control agent of pigeon population in city centres, as Peregrine Falcons feed mainly on birds caught and killed in flight – in a dive they can reach speeds of 300km/h, usually killing their prey instantly when striking it with their talons at high speed.

Peregrine Falcons form permanent monogamous pairs, building a stick platform nest on a ledge or cavity (natural or man-made) in which they usually lay a clutch of 1-4 eggs at the end of winter or early spring. The female is mostly responsible for incubating the eggs over a 5 week period, while the male will provide food for her at the nest. The chicks make their first flight at about 7 weeks of age but only become independent at about 4-5 months old.

Peregrine Falcon
Peregrine Falcon
Peregrine Falcon
Peregrine Falcon

During a visit to the Dullstroom Bird of Prey and Rehabilitation Centre in September 2020 we were treated to a display of the Peregrine Falcon’s prowess in the sky by Charlie, a hand-raised bird being cared for at the centre.

Charlie the Peregrine Falcon

A Waterbuck’s end and a Crocodile’s fortune

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On a recent tour of the Kruger National Park my guest and I were treated to this amazing sighting. We were following the course of the Olifants River when we saw a downed Waterbuck bull splashing in shallow water. How the Waterbuck ended up there is open to speculation, though it appeared to have a wound in its stomach and one of the other bulls standing on the riverbank might have had something to do with that. In any event the Waterbuck was not able to get back up and it didn’t take long for its splashing to attract a Nile Crocodile. It was extremely interesting to see how gingerly the Crocodile dealt with the Waterbuck, even after the antelope drowned itself, and this is likely due to the distasteful oily secretions that covers its coat.