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.

Survival of the Fittest

On Tuesday afternoon, I ambled down to feed the fish in the koi pond. Just as I was approaching the bridge, my eye was caught by a bright flash that disappeared into the water lilies. A baby had survived!

This is great news in the Morgenrood household. From October, a new cycle in a fierce battle for survival begins in our koi pond. That’s when the koi spawn and Siegie and I start to scan the edges of the pond looking for baby fish. Last season was our best season ever. We counted at least 20 fingerlings by the end of summer, but only two or three have survived the year.

When we first renovated our pond, friends and family used to give us small koi as birthday or Christmas presents. But it soon became obvious that they were throwing money down the drain. Of at least ten koi gifts we’ve received, only one has lived to adulthood.

Besides the frogs and the adult koi, there are three kinds of birds that find our “koilets” irresistible. As summer advances, they regularly visit our pond to gaze lovingly into the depths.

First, there’s the giant kingfisher, which gives a loud cackle of triumph when it spots our pond. But when it lands on the bridge railing, which is way too low for a diving board, it’s forced to fly away frustrated.

Then there’s the heron, which likes to stand motionless in the shallows waiting to stab a large fishy snack as it comes into range. It skirts the edges of our pond and generally flies away in disgust when it realises the water is too deep. This year, however, we had trouble with our pump and the water was low. At least two of our prized three-year-olds fell victim to the heron.

Finally, there’s the reed cormorant, a bird of a different feather, so to speak. Because it needs neither shallow water nor a diving board, it finds our pond a perfect place to hunt for a meal. Any koi smaller than 15 centimetres is fair game for this streamlined swimmer that seems to be able to dart around underwater for agonising minutes.

In the past five years or so, only around eight koi born in our pond have managed to survive into the second year. While most were predominately black with splashes of red, some were completely orange or white with large patches red and black. Desperately, we hoped one of these beauties would survive, but bright coloured fish are more visible. Sure enough, they were picked off one by one until only the darkest remained.

So, although I don’t hold out much hope for the five-centimetre-long light-coloured youngster I spotted the other day, I’m still keeping my fingers crossed.

“Why don’t you put a net over the pond?” a friend suggested. But it’s more important for us to keep our garden as natural as possible. And to be honest, we rather like being able to boast that herons and reed cormorants visit our garden. We just wish we could train them to be slightly less efficient.

The Bush Baby of the Reptile World

It was after dinner and I was reading the paper when something tickled my leg. I glanced down to see a tiny gecko and watched in fascination as it crawled over my thigh and onto the couch.

Then it disappeared. I went back to reading, too scared to move in case I crushed the little thing. A while later, Siegie noticed my gecko climbing up the opposite wall heading for the portrait of Aunt Rosamond.

I’m not sure how she would have felt about having a baby gecko take shelter behind her. I like to think she would have found it highly entertaining and poured another healthy glass of gin and tonic.

You’ve heard of lounge lizards. We have lounge geckos, which are much more appealing than lizards. I reckon one of the reasons is that lizards look like snakes with legs and you can almost imagine their rounded, shiny bodies slithering along the ground. I simply couldn’t watch a lizard crawling over my leg and think it looked cute.

Geckos, on the other hand, are flatter and duller, their mottled bodies looking much more comfortable running up a wall. Like all nocturnal hunters, they have big eyes, which may make them appear more appealing – the bush babies of the reptile world.

Amongst other inhabitants, our house provides a home to geckos. We see evidence of them behind the bar, where their droppings are often found clinging to the walls. Fortunately, a damp cloth is all that’s needed to rectify this problem.

I suspect geckos like that area because they can hide behind the wall unit during the warm light of day. There’s a nice gap between the unit and the wall, giving refuge to who knows how many creatures.

Mostly, we don’t see the geckos in the house, as they come out in search of their insect prey after we’ve gone to bed. We’re much more likely to see them in the garage or storeroom, where the murky surrounds mean they don’t need to find a place to hide.

Until a blundering human enters. Many times, I’ve opened the door to the storeroom in search of gardening tools only to have a gecko drop down to the ground. Then I have to take part in a juggling act to avoid stepping on it or jamming it in the door frame.

Not long ago, I was searching for a plant pot and came upon a black plastic potting bag. As I picked it up, a few eggs fell out and one broke on the concrete floor. That was minus one baby gecko.

It seems geckos face all sorts of monstrous enemies. Besides heavy-handed humans smashing their eggs or squashing their bodies, there are rain spiders waiting to feast on them.

Inevitably, there’s also the friendly neighbourhood cat, partial to pouncing on anything that wriggles so invitingly. And thereby hangs a tale – or tail.

Hadeda Hiatus

I was sitting reading the paper one late afternoon when a couple of hadedas flew in and made a clumsy landing on the lawn. Soon joined by two more, they started ambling in a slow procession, poking the grass with their large bills.

There’d been a rain shower the night before and the ground was nice and soft. Clearly there were rich pickings: every second prod evoked something juicy that was thrown back into gaping throats. It was a peaceful scene – but it wouldn’t last.

Whoever coined the phrase “let sleeping dogs lie”? As anyone with any sense knows, sleeping dogs keep their ears and eyes in standby mode and wake whenever anything vaguely exciting appears to be about to happen. Unless, of course, they’re about to be thrown out of the house for the night, in which case they pretend to be dead to the world.

At all other times, however, they react to triggers that they know promise reward – such as the food cupboard being opened or hiking boots appearing.

Or hadedas on the lawn. With no warning, there was a sudden explosion from the dog cushions under the stairs and a wild scrabbling of paws on the tiles. Bursting out the sliding door onto the patio, Rhea dashed across the lawn. Great brown birds scattered in all directions, raucously shouting “hah-dee-dah, hah-dee-dah”.

Caught up in the thrill of the chase, Rhea overran the edge of the lawn and collected herself rather ungracefully in the flower beds. Then she looked back over her shoulder and realised that the hadedas had merely flown up into the air and landed back on the lawn behind her. She ran back up the lawn, scattering them once more.

But the hadedas had played this game too often and now they’d landed back on the lawn further down. The dog joined me in the lounge, gathering the remnants of her ridgeback pride, and clunked herself down on the floor. Facing the lawn, she lay with her face on her paws, feigning indifference.

She was watching, however, and soon the temptation once more became too much and she exploded out the door to resume the chase. Sluggishly, they rose up from the lawn, leaving it almost to the last minute, wheeled round and landed again. Head down, Rhea ran at them, again and again. Finally, the hadedas had had enough and disappeared over the roof. Rhea retired to her cushion in triumph.

A few minutes later, Siegie came home. “There are a whole load of hadedas round the front,” he told me.

Rhea and I both knew the reason why. But hers was a fleeting victory: the hadedas would be back on the lawn and she’d have to start hounding them all over again.

Of Butterflies and Goodwill

Largely brown and yellow, with two colourful eye spots, there’s no mistaking the Christmas butterfly when it flutters by. More often called Citrus Swallowtails, they’re common in gardens during December and January.

But butterflies are like birds: if you want them to breed in your garden, you need the right plants. When we decided to make our garden indigenous, we checked up on what would attract the different species. We learned that other than citrus trees, the Cape chestnut was a good food source for the caterpillars of the Citrus Swallowtail.

So we bought a young sapling at the Kirstenbosch Plant Sale. We read up that we could expect our chestnut to flower after about eight years and so we waited patiently. The deadline came and went, and still we waited. Finally, after ten years, we were rewarded with a few flowers. 

Today I stand at the bottom of our garden and look back at the house. Arching over the roof on the right is a beautiful, strong tree covered in a pale pink flush of flowers. It has lived up to its botanical name, Calodendrum capense – beautiful tree from the cape. Maybe, in all its decoration, it should be called the Christmas tree.

In the meantime, we discovered what to plant in our garden for the caterpillars of other butterflies. We learned that Wild Peach trees are great for Garden Acraeas, those ubiquitous orange creatures with transparent wing tips. Arctotis and gazanias are for Painted Ladies, whose caterpillars are the only ones to spin themselves webs. Plumbago is good for the Common Blues, while carpet geranium, of course, attracts the Geranium Bronze.

Sometimes, the caterpillars do quite a lot of damage to our greenery. But once they’ve metamorphosed into their fragile alter egos, it’s all worthwhile. Often, I stand in front of the beds of scabiosa and Cape forget-me-nots, watching the butterflies flit from flower to flower. I once watched four Citrus Swallowtails put on a magnificent aerial ballet outlined against an azure sky. Well worth a few chomped up lemon trees, I reckon.

Don’t tell anyone, but I’m even starting to think that those prolific alien invaders, the European Cabbage Whites, can look rather appealing when dancing above the scabiosa.

Maybe it’s because I’m still basking in festive goodwill. Siegie and I wish you and your families a thrilling 2010, filled with joy, love, life's little essentials – and butterflies.