Tag Archives: outdoors

Bank Cormorant

Phalacrocorax neglectus

The Bank Cormorant is an endangered species restricted to the Atlantic coastlines of Namibia and South Africa’s Northern and Western Cape Provinces, where an abundance of kelp (sea bamboo) occurs. It has a population estimated at only 2,500 breeding pairs (7,500 individuals), declining from an estimated 9,000 breeding pairs in the 1980’s due to human and seal disturbance at breeding sites and a reduced food supply. Away from the breeding colonies (where they often occur alongside other kinds of cormorant) they’re usually only seen alone or in small groups.

While the Bank Cormorant is strictly a marine species it seldom ventures further from the coastline than 10km seawards, where it catches fish, octopus, lobster, shrimp and other invertebrates by diving up to 30m deep and staying submerged for up to 80 seconds.

Bank Cormorants form monogamous pairs, breeding in small colonies of 20-100 pairs at any time of year. The pair works together to construct the large platform nest of seaweed, sticks and feathers glued together by guano on inaccessible rocks on the shore or on islands. The parents take turns to incubate the clutch of 1-3 eggs over a month-long period. The chicks take flight for the first time when they’re 8-10 weeks old but remain dependent on their parents until they’re about 6 months old. Fully grown they weigh about 2kg, measuring around 76cm in length.

Bank Cormorant

Botterboom

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Tylecodon paniculatus

The Botterboom (“Butter Tree”) is a xerophytic plant native to the Succulent Karoo, occurring from the Eastern Cape to central Namibia. It is the largest species of its genus, growing up to 3m tall, and usually grows on rocky slopes. Botterbome make wonderful feature plants in a water-wise indigenous garden, but as it is poisonous will cause paralysis and even death in livestock that feeds on it.

The Botterboom flowers from November, seeding in autumn in time for the sparse winter rainfall season in its native range. It is pollinated by nectar-feeding birds. The plants drops its leaves at the onset of the flowering season, photosynthesizing through its fat, yellow-green stem during the very hot and dry Succulent Karoo summer and carrying leaves only from autumn to spring.

Botterboom (Tylecodon paniculatus)

Small Striped Swordtail Butterfly

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Graphium policenes

Despite a wingspan of up to 7cm, the Small Striped Swordtail is one of the smaller butterflies in the family. In South Africa it is found in coastal bush and forests in Kwazulu-Natal and the extreme north-east of the Eastern Cape. They usually fly high and very fast, but do congregate at mud puddles from time to time. Adults are on the wing through the warmer months from September to April.

Small-striped Swordtail

Small-striped Swordtail (photo by Joubert)

Pincushion

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Genus Leucospermum

The Pincushions are a key component of South Africa’s Cape Floristic Region, an area of incredible floral diversity and endemism known as fynbos, the smallest of the world’s six floral kingdoms and a recognised World Heritage Site. Among the 48 currently recognised species in the genus are species that grow prostrate along the ground while others grow as large shrubs up to 5m tall. Most of these species have a limited distribution and 40 of them are threatened to some degree or another by inappropriate land use, incorrect fire management and invading alien plants and ants. Only 5 species occur outside the Cape Floristic Region.

Pincushions are evergreen and grow in relative depleted soil. The flowers are pollinated by nectar-feeding birds and rodents, and once the seeds have been formed these are carried underground by native pugnacious ants (genus Anoplolepis). The seeds remain dormant underground until a fire sweeps through the fynbos above, at which point the seeds germinate and establish a new generation of Pincushion plants.

Pincushions are popular in gardens and in the cut flower trade.

Pincushion

Pincushion bush and a setting sun

Pincushion bush

Pincushion

Pincushion leaves

Pincushion

Pincushion seedhead

Pincushion

Cape Sugarbird on a Pincushion bush

Cape Sugarbird on a Pincushion flower

Orange-breasted Sunbird on a Pincushion flower

Pincushion

Namaqua Sandgrouse

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Pterocles namaqua

The Namaqua Sandgrouse is a bird of dry habitats (less than 300mm of annual rainfall), ranging from sandy savannas and shrubland to gravel deserts. It is a seed-eater and highly nomadic. When not breeding they move around in flocks, often congregating in their hundreds if not thousands at waterholes in the early morning.

Namaqua Sandgrouse may breed at anytime of year, though nesting peaks at the end of the rainy season when grasses go to seed. Pairs are monogamous and their nest is little more than a scrape in the ground next to a small shrub or clump of grass. Clutches of 2-3 eggs are incubated by both parents for a 3 week period, the female sitting on the eggs by day while the male takes the night shift. The chicks can walk and start foraging soon after hatching. For the first 2 months of their lives their father makes daily trips to a waterhole up to 60km away to carry water back to his chicks in his belly feathers. The chicks can start flying short stints when they’re about a month old, but remain dependent on their parents till the age of about 3 months. Fully grown they measure about 26cm in length and weigh around 180g.

The Namaqua Sandgrouse occurs from south-western Angola, through Namibia, Botswana and marginally Zimbabwe to South Africa, where it is found in the more arid western half of our country in the provinces of North West, Free State, Northern Cape, Western Cape and Eastern Cape. The IUCN considers it to be of least concern, the sinking of artificial waterholes in farm lands proving beneficial to this species.

Namaqua Sandgrouse

Namaqua Sandgrouse wetting his feathers to take water back to its chicks at the nest

Namaqua Sandgrouse

Namaqua Sandgrouse (male)

Namaqua Sandgrouse (female)

Namaqua Sandgrouse (male)

Namaqua Sandgrouse (female)

Namaqua Sandgrouse pair

Namaqua Sandgrouse

Ruddy Turnstone

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Arenaria interpres

The Ruddy Turnstone is a migrant wading bird visiting South Africa during our summer months, arriving from their breeding grounds in the Northern Hemisphere (“our” birds mostly originate from central Siberia) about September and staying until April. Some birds, usually young ones, remain behind during our winter. While they prefer to forage along rocky or kelp-covered shores or beds of eelgrass growing on sandy or muddy flats exposed at low tide, they’re also occasionally recorded at inland freshwater bodies, especially while migrating. They feed on invertebrates uncovered by turning over rocks and debris washed out of the ocean, hence the name. Several birds may work together to shift heavier objects, such as dead fish. The Ruddy Turnstone is a gregarious bird, usually encountered in small flocks and often associating with other species of wading birds. Adults measure about 23cm in length and weigh around 100g.

With the exception of Antarctica the Ruddy Turnstone is found seasonally along parts of the coastline of every continent, and it is listed as being of least concern with an estimated mature population of up to 500,000 birds. In the austral summer they’re found along the entire South African coastline, being especially numerous at Langebaan Lagoon in the West Coast National Park.

Ruddy Turnstones

Ruddy Turnstone

Flock of Ruddy Turnstones (photo by Joubert)

Ruddy Turnstone

Ruddy Turnstones

Ruddy Turnstone

Ruddy Turnstones

Ruddy Turnstone

Ruddy Turnstones

Ruddy Turnstone

Bontle’s Springhares

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I know of no place better than Bontle Camp in the Marakele National Park to more reliably see our very own African kangaroos, or Springhares to give them their proper English name even though they’re not hares either!

Springhare jumping aroun in Bontle Camp after dark

Pedetes capensis

The Springhare is a large rodent, measuring up to 90cm in length and weighing between 2.5 and 3.5kg. Their mode of propulsion is unique among mammals in sub-Saharan Africa, jumping kangaroo-like as they move around and covering up to 2m in a single bound.

They inhabit areas with compact, but not hard, soil – usually sandy or sedimentary – in which they very prodigiously tunnel their own burrows of up to 140m in extent. Each individual Springhare lives in its own burrow system, except for females who’d share it with their latest baby, and these have several entrances, side tunnels and escape holes. They’ll often block the tunnel entrance behind them once they’ve entered it. These tunnels are important refuges for many other kinds of animals that shelter in holes in the ground. While several Springhares may have tunnels in near proximity to one another they’re not social animals.

Female Springhares give birth to a single young (very seldomly twins) at any time of year after a 3 month gestation period. The baby stays in the mother’s tunnels until it is weaned at about 2 months of age. Females may have between 2 and 4 young every year. They only live to about 6 years old in the wild.

Springhares are a favourite prey of almost every predator on the continent, humans included. They are active at night and do not emerge from their burrows until total darkness falls well after sunset. They forage near their burrows to enable a quick escape, and feed mainly on grass (roots, stems and blades), bulbs and herbs. Springhares are often considered a pest in farmlands where they can do considerable damage to crops.

The Southern African Springhare (P. capensis) is found in portions of all South Africa’s provinces with the exception of Kwazulu-Natal and the Western Cape. Beyond our borders their distribution extends northwards to the southern DRC. The East African Springhare (P. surdaster) from Kenya and Tanzania was recognized as a closely related but distinct species in the 1990’s. The IUCN considers both species of Springhare to be of least concern.

Continuing our Marakele Game Drive

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So far we’ve seen a leopard, beautiful birds, elephants, rhinos and buffaloes, creepy crawlies of all description, and inspiring scenery. Let’s see what else we might encounter as we continue our explorations of Marakele National Park.

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

Giraffe portrait (photo by Joubert)

Kudu cow

All ears! Kudu calf (photo by Joubert)

Kudu cow

Kudu bull (photo by Joubert)

Kudu bull

Coy Baboon (photo by Joubert)

Impala Ram

Rock Hyraxes are usually to be seen up top at Lenong Viewpoint

Warthog youngster with a mouth full of food

Warthog

Black-backed Jackal

Plains Zebras on the aptly named Kwaggasvlakte (photo by Joubert)

Plains Zebra

Plains Zebra on a hillside

Mountain Reedbuck

Klipspringer pair

Remember that DeWetsWild will gladly assist you with a reservation and planning if you’re interested in visiting Marakele National Park and making the most of your visit.

Marakele’s Magic

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The Marakele National Park, and the Waterberg Mountains it protects, is a beautiful place.

Marakele scenery

Plectranthus hereroensis – the Herero Spur Flower

Stand of Plectranthus hereroensis – the Herero Spur Flower

Plectranthus hereroensis – the Herero Spur Flower – thrives on the rocky slopes of the Waterberg at Marakele’s Lenong Viewpoint

I suspect this is the blooms of a type of Senecio

Traveling on the plains below the Waterberg reveals a very different community of plants

Marakele’s Magic!

Towering cliffs of the Waterberg

Looking down into the valley from atop the Waterberg

Beautiful woodland lining a road through Marakele National Park

A small river running through Marakele

Remember that DeWetsWild will gladly assist you with a reservation and planning if you’re interested in visiting Marakele National Park and making the most of your visit.

A more demure Marakele

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We jump from one side of the size scale to the other, as in today’s post we’re taking a closer look at some of the more diminutive inhabitants of the Marakele National Park that crossed our path when we visited last week.

Where there’s big herbivores, like those we featured yesterday, roaming free you’re sure to find Dung Beetles going about their important work.

Dung Beetle

Just because they’re a lot smaller doesn’t mean that the predators featured in the next few paragraphs are any less fierce! Watching this Solifuge inspect every nook and cranny of a zebra dung pile for an unwary prey was every bit as exciting as watching a lioness stalk her prey.

Solifuge on the hunt

This Yellow-and-Black Kite Spider is a lot more laid back with her hunting technique!

This Yellow-and-Black Kite Spider was hanging around in Bontle Camp

And this Puff Adder might be slow to cross the road, but that’s just because it is so confident of its own notoriety.

Puff Adder crossing a road in Marakele National Park (photo by Joubert)

Lizards and chameleons put in regular appearances as we traveled through the Park

Flap-necked Chameleon

Speckled Rock Skink inside a tree stump

At night, Red Toads hunt around the ablution blocks and other artificial lights spread around the camping area.

Red Toads hunt around the ablution blocks at night

With so many dangerous creatures around it’s no wonder this millipede decided to go underground!

A particularly interesting sighting in Bontle Camp was a multitude of butterflies, flies, moths and beetles congregating at and around a fallen-over Marula tree stump oozing sap.

Guinea-fowl Butterfly

Foxy Emperor butterfly

Demon Emperor Butterfly

Pearl-spotted Emperor

Foxy Emperor butterflies

Foxy Emperor butterfly

Bushveld Emperor butterfly

A very nondescript moth blending very well with the dying wood

Marbled Fruit Chafer beetle jostling for position with a trio of flies at the saphole

Yellow Pansy

Foxy Emperor butterfly

Pearl-spotted Emperor

Foxy Emperor butterfly trying to chase off a Demon Emperor butterfly

Guinea-fowl Butterfly

Remember that DeWetsWild will gladly assist you with a reservation and planning if you’re interested in visiting Marakele National Park and making the most of your visit.