Birthday Reflections

There's a whole log available, but the terrapins all want the same space

I celebrated my birthday last Thursday at Umlani Bushcamp in the Timbavati Nature Reserve. One of the highlights was a chance to spend a couple of hours on my own in a treehouse hide overlooking Marco’s Dam.

There’s something about being alone in the wilds of Africa, something precious. Not another person around, not a single dwelling, no mechanical sounds or smells. Just nature. Just you.

From my elevated perch, I looked out across the landscape and waited. Gradually my eyes took in the greater picture on the far side of the dam: a pair of African hawk eagles and a juvenile bateleur scanning for prey, a grey heron stalking the edge of the dam, a flock of guineafowl hugging the bushes for shade, a crocodile soaking up the sun’s heat.

Impala mirrors

I turned to look behind me and realised that a herd of impala had magically appeared. Slowly they made their way around the dam, grazing the short grass before slaking their thirst and giving me a chance to admire their reflections in the water. 

On the far side, a giraffe with a wonky ear ambled up and bent down awkwardly to drink her fill. So ungainly when stooping low, so regal at full stretch. Again and again, she lowered her mouth to the water then raised it up to swallow and gaze around, droplets splashing between her contorted legs. 

So ungainly, so regal

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted more movement. A male steenbok picked his way across the grassy plain, his little pointed horns carried proudly upright. It gave me a thrill to know that this secretive little creature was completely oblivious to the fact that he was being watched.

What a way to mark a birthday, surrounded by Nature’s gifts.

Mountain Song for Judy

Yesterday, August 10, dawned with a clear sky, perfect for walking in the mountains of the Fairest Cape. We decided to walk for Judy, our dear friend who loves the mountain so and would be on the slopes herself if she weren’t recovering from a major operation. Afterwards, she would be writing about her experience and showing us her wonderful photographs.  

I can’t pretend to match your talent, Judy, but I offer this song to the mountain for you.

The Vlakkenberg stands sentry on the southern side of Constantia Nek. Following a path introduced to us by you and Jannie, we climbed steadily past graceful restios and up through a forest of silver trees, their soft leaves shimmering in the gentle light of a wintry sun.

The musty forest smell of fallen leaves and the clear call of the Southern boubou awakened my senses. The pinky-mauve blossoms of the September bush vied with the bright yellow of the Aspalathus, shyly opening up to the bumble bees and butterflies. Everywhere I looked, I found hints of the spring that was coiled and waiting to burst forth.

We left the forest and steadily climbed the steep slopes towards the rocky fringe just below the summit. Suddenly, the air above our heads came alive with feathery acrobats. A flock of alpine swifts, fresh from their long migration, swooped and soared above the rockface, effortlessly dodging the hungry crows, ravens and rock kestrels. Entranced, I stood and looked upwards for several long moments, delighting in the whoosh of the wind in their wings. And then they were gone.

At the top, we found a rocky outcrop with the most perfect view over the Cape Flats and out over False Bay.  Wisps of mist still hung low over the land, but the sun was warm and welcoming. Far below, we pinpointed the red roofs of Constantiaberg Hospital and sent our thoughts and our love down to you.  I like to think that it was at about that time that you spoke those few words to your beloved Jannie and gave him such joy.

Your mountain is patiently waiting for you, dressing herself in her finery. The sugarbirds are dancing above the black-bearded proteas, their impossibly long tails trailing like ribbons on the breeze. The orange-breasted sunbirds are jealously guarding their territories, scolding those bold enough to pass near. There is no rush; she will wait. And when you are ready, Judy, she will embrace you again. 

On Silent Wings

I was drifting off to sleep recently when I heard the unmistakable sound of an owl hooting. Not a single "hoo", but a soft dove-like series of notes, repeated several times.  “Did you hear the owl?” I asked Siegie the next morning.

Yes, he had and we agreed that it had been a wood owl. These melodious little owls frequent our area, but it's not often that we hear one and we've yet to actually see one.

In my book, owls are special. Because they are nocturnal and so silent on the wing, they are often missed – unless you happen to be using a spotlight. One night a couple of years ago, Siegie was parked out down near the river while out on a Neighbourhood Watch patrol. Shining the spotlight into the foliage, he caught the reflection of a pair of eyes and realised there was a barn owl sitting in a tree.

I was very envious when he told me the story. Many years ago we’d heard a barn owl giving its dreadful screech when we were living on the other side of Hout Bay, but this was the first time either of us had seen one. It doesn’t seem right that an owl with such a lovely face can produce a blood-curdling screech instead of a melodious hoot.

The spotted eagle owl, on the other hand, has the quintessential owl hoot and is more likely to be seen during the day. Over the years, I’ve had some wonderful encounters with these large “eared” owls. I once surprised one at the bottom of our garden, standing in the middle of the path leading down to the river. I wanted to sit down and watch it for a while, but our cat came along and disturbed it.

A few winters ago, another eagle owl spent several days roosting in the bare branches of the weeping willow above the washing line. I grew quite fond of him and even called him Ollie. He and I had some marvellous one-sided conversations when I hung out the washing.

I’ve also seen Ollie – or one of his cousins – down on the riverbank many times. Favourite roosts include a fence post, a large rock or the branch of another weeping willow.

But perhaps the most thrilling Ollie experience we’ve had happened early one evening. Siegie called me out on to the patio to hear an owl hooting from a tree right in front of our patio. It was around 7pm and was just getting dark. The owl was beautifully outlined against the dusky sky as it perched on a long bare branch.

We watched and listened for several long minutes. Finally, it flew away on silent wings.

A Snake in the Boot

It rained last Thursday night and the patio was still wet on Friday morning. I grabbed my gumboots, which reside just outside the sliding door, and slipped them on. “Yikes – what was that?” I asked Duma, my ridgeback shadow.

I knew something had taken up refuge in my boot as soon as my right foot touched the ground. I managed to withdraw it before putting any weight down and shook the boot out.

Countless books on the wide outdoors warn that you should shake your shoes out before putting them on. Once I crushed a creature in my boot – a snail that went “crunch” and spread slime over my socks. This time, I knew it wasn’t a snail but was certainly not expecting the tiny snake that dropped to the ground after I’d given the boot a hard knock.

It was brown, thin and around 20 centimetres long. Recognising it as a harmless common slug-eater, I picked it up by its tail to move it to a safer location. It didn’t like that and started to twist around, setting Duma on high alert. I told him not to be foolish and tossed the reptile into a nearby fern.

Many people back away from snakes in fear. Indeed, most snakes justify such a reaction, but slug-eaters are different. Up to 40 centimetres in length, they’re completely harmless. Except to slugs and snails, their only food source.

Naturally shy creatures, slug-eaters normally hide away under lawn edges or leaf litter. Not long ago I disturbed one when I was clearing fallen leaves off the path down to the river. It was tightly rolled in a messy tangle, which is why it’s called a “tabakrolletjie” in Afrikaans.

I picked it up, laid it on the palm of my hand and watched it unroll, head-first. There’s something beautiful about the way a snake moves. I let it slide sinuously through my fingers, playing it between my hands, marvelling at the cool and smooth feeling, watching its tiny forked tongue flick in and out. Eventually, I lowered my hand to the ground and it slithered off into the undergrowth.

Other creatures in our garden are not always so kind to slug-eaters. Once, I found one being attacked by Trixie, a little terrier I thought would never harm a fly. But a terrier is a terrier: she dealt a mortal blow before I could intervene.

Another time, Siegie and I were idly watching a group of hadedas aerating the lawn with their long bills in search of a tasty worm or caterpillar. One of them was probing along the edging when it suddenly pulled out a fully grown slug-eater. You could almost see the shock as it wondered what to do with the wriggling reptile. Fortunately, it dropped it and the snake beat a hasty retreat.

Yesterday was a perfect gardening day. Picking up my boots, and mindful of Friday’s experience, I knocked them against the wall and tipped them upside down. Blow me down – the same little snake spilled out. Silly little snake. You can’t hold me responsible if you get crushed.

Blistering Barnacles - It's Whale Season

My phone rang at 12.40. “You’ve got to get here right away,” said Mariette. “The whales are just three metres from the harbour wall.”

Mariette, who lives in Scott Estate and sees the sea, is my unofficial whale crier. Just the week before, she’d been telling me about the thrilling experience of looking almost straight down into a whale’s blowhole somewhere beyond Flora Bay. I was green with envy: it was well into the season and I had yet to see a whale. I pleaded with her to let me know the next time they visited the bay.

And now she had, but I was in the city centre. I jumped into my car, grumbling at the other drivers slowing me down, and arrived at the Mariner’s Wharf parking area half an hour later.

Walking out on the harbour wall, I noticed a crowd of people, but Mariette had already gone. The whales were still there, though. However, they’d moved out into the bay and were now at least 20 metres away. Mildly disappointed, I watched them wallowing in the swells for a while, tail flukes and fins rising now and then as they rolled lazily against each other. It looked like there were three of them together in a raft, with at least two others further away. Every now and then one of them blew, the sound hollow, Darth Vadarish.

The crowd started to thin out and I wondered if I should leave too. But I was enjoying the feel of the sun on my back and listening to the excited chatter around me. Two young girls sitting on the wall nearby became part of the show. “Look at those barnacles,” said one as a whale pushed its head up for a breather. “Blistering barnacles!”

Then the unbelievable happened. The raft of three whales started drifting closer and closer, until they were right up against the harbour wall. We looked down straight onto them as they gave us the most wonderful show for several minutes.

The closest one was on its side under the water, so clear that we could easily see the massive head and body gliding past. Were they mating? Was one of them being supported by the others because it was ill?

I like to think that they were mating: I thought I caught a glimpse of an appendage linking them, like the fuel line linking a giant aeroplane to a tanker refuelling in midair. But maybe it was wishful thinking.

Who needs Hermanus? I’ve experienced much better sightings of whales right here in Hout Bay. But to strike it lucky, it helps to have your own personal whale crier. Thanks, Mariette.

It's Enough to Send You Batty

It was dark by the time our friends arrived for dinner. They’d never been to our house before so we showed them around. “Do you get a good view from up here?” asked Judy when we got to the upstairs bedroom.

I opened the sliding door onto the deck and we walked out to stand at the edge of the railing, breathing in the fresh night air. Suddenly, with a whoosh, a large creature flew up and over our heads. “What on earth was that?” I wondered.

Its wingbeat was far too noisy for an owl, I reasoned. Then we saw more of them, twisting and turning up and around the trees, and realised they must have been bats. We’re used to seeing bats in the early evening, but they’re usually small ones that flit around chasing bugs. These were much bigger and the only flying animals I could think of to match that size would be fruit bats.

Checking my trusty field guide, I found that Egyptian fruit bats frequent our area, roosting in caves on Table Mountain during the day in large colonies. At night, they travel several kilometres in search of a suitable tree, where they no doubt gorge themselves silly.

I’d never been aware of their presence before, but it made sense that they were visiting our garden. At this time of year, our waterberry trees are bursting with plump, deep-red berries and we have unknowingly created Bat Paradise.

I had a chance to have a good look at fruit bats a couple of years ago, when we were in the Kruger Park. While entering a public loo at one of the bushveld camps, I disturbed a group of them roosting under the eaves in a secluded corner of what was obviously a little-visited facility. Most of them flew up into the nearby trees and settled on high branches to hang like dried out bunches of leaves. Annoyed that I’d left my binoculars in the car, I gave up trying to make out their features.

Then I turned back towards the eaves to see a lone bat hanging face-down and staring at me with unblinking eyes. I stood still for several minutes, mesmerised by a face that looked for all the world like that of a small dog. It reminded me of a miniature version of Rhea, our ridgeback, lying upside down with her long snout pointing out and watching my every move.

Now, when I open our bedroom curtains in the morning to reveal dark-red fruity splashes across our plate-glass windows, I can picture exactly what the culprits look like. I’m thankful they’re not as big as Rhea – and that our house is made of facebrick rather than plastered and painted. That sort of clean-up job would be guaranteed to send anyone batty.

Wanted: Lawn Order

I found a dead mole floating in the swimming pool recently. Good, I thought cruelly, as I scooped it out and threw it into the bushes. One less on the lawn.

Our lawn, you see, is pock-marked with earth and we’re fighting a losing battle. Actually, the problem is we’re not really fighting – we’re sitting back and allowing the mole terrorists to overrun our land. Siegie, who feels more deeply scarred by the incursion since he’s the mower, calls them “ghastly demons from the subterranean depths of hell” and suggests it may be time to get hold of The Moleman.

But we all know that if you want to rid your garden of moles your neighbours have to join in the fight. That’s because moles don’t respect walls and fences. They’ll be tunnelling back into your garden before you take that first celebratory sip of gin and tonic on the patio.

Besides, there’s your conscience to deal with. What we have in our garden are golden moles, not molerats. While the latter are rodents with large, ugly yellow teeth bent on destroying your plants, true moles are cute little insectivores that burrow under the surface looking for bugs and earthworms. They serve the vital function of helping to keep insect pests under control and aerating the soil. And here’s the crunch – they’re a protected species.

So although I celebrate when they commit suicide, my conscience won’t allow me to kill them. Instead, I’ve tried various remedies guaranteed to send them packing by desperate fellow-gardeners. Hearing that moles are very sensitive to smells, I’ve poked all sorts of smelly things into their tunnels. The dog-poo seemed to offend me more than the moles, while the mothballs were unceremoniously pushed right back out again.

I discussed the problem with my friend Binny the other day while we were walking the dogs. “What you need to do,” she said, “is to create a habitat somewhere else in the garden which will attract the moles.” But we couldn’t quite see all the earthworms and juicy grubs congregating in the flower beds. A better option, we finally agreed, might be to attract the moles’ natural enemies.

With moles more likely to exit their tunnels at night in search of insectivorous snacks, it seems that owls may be our best bet. So please, everyone, do your utmost to attract owls to your gardens – especially if you live in the Hout Bay area. We’d really like to give the grass a chance to grow back.