AFTER THE DROUGHT

In Africa the seasons can flow one into the next and sometimes the rain just does not fall. For about 4 years we have not had decent rain when suddenly, after a few heavy downpours, the dams rose from being about 30% full to some overflowing and the dams in Nelson Mandela Metropole in South Africa are in the region of 80% of capacity. Of course the water restrictions are still on – the wheels of municipal bureaucracy turn even slower than the drought cycle.

Luckily the floods were minor with no loss of life and just a lot of suffering, cold and inconvenience for the poor. Living in shacks means that your roof does leak and with the wind driving the rain into the sides of the shack the walls also leak. Large rocks are used to hold down sheets of zinc that are the preferred roofing material. After the rain everything has to be brought out into the open to dry and is a feature of life in the poorer parts of the world. In the picture above you see blankets, clothes and mats drying on the fence. On the roof rows of shoes dry in the sun. To me this is such a typical African picture – we love the colours of the clothes and blanket but do tend to forget the suffering that goes coupled with it. Above the house you see a satellite television dish, something very African too. Being poor or living in a shack does not mean you have to forego luxuries or dreams. Even better, behind the houses, you see the approaching rows of new houses that are slowly replacing the shacks. Sure the process is slow and everyone complains from those who have received the houses to those who are still waiting. The change is slow but still good.

Bush Fire

Bush fires are fairly commonplace in summer and when we are experiencing droughts in South Africa but the one last week which threatened the South African Marine Rehabilitation and Education Centre near Port Elizabeth was particularly nasty.

It was fanned by a strong south easterly gale and basically could not be stopped. The fire brigade placed their vehicles along a tarred access road and used is as a natural fire break. They could not prevent the fire from leaping the road but were able to divert it away from the seabird rehabilitation centre.

The centre was evacuated and it was done quickly and efficiently. I was amused to hear the list of items that were evacuated being recounted to a journalist – 14 African Penguins, 2 Cape Gannets and 2 boxes of fish. It was sweet of them to think of the penguin’s lunch. The fire brigade stayed overnight and after a few flare-ups the fire was finally out. Lots of things go wrong when there are fires – one firewoman was evacuated to hospital with smoke inhalation and several others had to have their eyes treated for smoke irritation. Luckily the approaching fire was fairly narrow and most of the small game could avoid the flames. One of my personal horrors are Puff Adders and several were driven out of the bush by the flames. They are a serious hazard for firemen and the on-lookers.

SAMREC was saved and over the next few days the volunteers cleaned and washed the buildings and exhibits and I overheard some great but rather useless wisdom – it is easier to clean a smoky stuffed penguin than a live penguin.

The pictures I took were ok enough but one was unusual and caught my interest. A rainbow formed in the spray of water thrown near the firemen who were hosing the approaching wall of flames. Maybe the rainbow was a promise of a fire free future ahead.

True Confessions of a Naturalist/Photographer

I am supposed to earn my living from photography and writing but sometimes the naturalist in me takes over. Driving in a small municipal nature reserve along a fence I saw a small antelope and managed to switch off the engine and coast to a silent stop, grab a camera and fall silently out of the car. The small antelope continued feeding along the fence and eventually passed me.

Watching I realised it was a Blue Duiker, the smallest antelope found in Southern Africa. You seldom see them and in some 35 years of photography the only ones I have seen were dead alongside the road or dead in a snare. My camera sounded like a machine gun in the quiet of the morning and the antelope quickly realised it was not alone. It nervously approached the road and hesitatingly stepped over to the other side. Still using a slow almost ponderous walk it went to a track leading into thick bush and in a blink skipped down the path and disappeared.

Wonder how long it will take before I see another. Interesting how large the hooves seem, an expert (thanks Ayesha)(will tell the world to visit the Kragga Kamma Game Park!) told me that it was the result of the soft sandy habitat it lives in. If the surfaces it walks on are not abrasive the hooves will grow. They are not rare but are seldom seen because of their secretive habits and dense habitat of dense coastal dunes. They are most active early in the morning and late at night.

Sadly they make good eating and are easily snared. Crossing roads is also not their forte and I chose this picture because it shows how secretive they are and how hard they try to avoid being seen. This antelope walked back to the shadow across the road and crossed in the shadow. Good camouflage but not good road sense.

I do like the white edged tail which makes identification easy. It is almost like a little flag that identifies it. Next time I will remember that I am a professional photographer and will take more than just a few pictures. I might never see another one.

Painted Reed Frogs

I probably spend a bit too much time around my little fish pond. I ignore the Raucus Toads (too noisy) and keep an eye on the Painted Reed Frogs.

At night it is all sex and music. The adults sit on the lily pads and surrounding vegetation and make their not unpleasant “short, high pitched, explosive whipp-whipp whistles, repeated once every second.”* They do this in a massed choir and it certainly works well for them and there are many happy couples clasping each other in the water and tadpoles in the pond. So many in fact that we have a new visitor, a Fishing Spider, that is providing a bit of tadpole population control.

It is not what happens at night that has caught my attention, it is how the frogs disperse during the day that I find fascinating. The total population of Reed Frogs is about 20. During the day there are at most 4 around the pond and the rest go and hide in the garden. I find their choice of hiding places interesting.

It makes good sense for a young frog to spend the day in the rain gauge. A frog would want to know if there was rain as it would enhance the night’s activities if there was more water – although the only time they go into the water is to escape predators or mate. Completely inexplicable is one frog (I call him Herbert the Invisible) who sits in full sunlight in the middle of a brick wall in full view of all predators (who range from birds to snakes). He (or she) persisted in doing this and eventually there were 3 “invisible” wall sitting frogs. One brave frog sat in an aloe for about 3 weeks, every day on the same sharp and thorny leaf. His bright colours made him stand out against the dark leaf. Again it did not really make sense.

Stranger still are the Painted Reed Frogs who like the pink or orange buoys. We live near the sea and cannot leave a buoy lying on the beach and the garden is full of them. They ignore most colours and if you really need a frog looking in the pink buoy is almost guaranteed to be successful. They don’t like yellow or red and tend to ignore all the other buoys.

My favourites though are the frogs who spend the day waiting for the night’s action on the pond as I don’t have to spend too much time looking for them. There is always one boring one who will spend the day sitting on a lily pad but then there are the ones who sit on the lily flowers. Some spend the day on the flower stalk, probably convinced that they are invisible. The really fascinating ones sit inside the flowers or on the petals. During the peak sunlight hours the flowers are completely open and as the light starts fading the flowers close and the frog travels on the petal till he or she is completely enclosed by the flower.

I am no scientist and cannot really explain their choice of daytime resting spots. I do know that they do not like being disturbed and if you do so the frog will choose another spot to spend the next day. Maybe I should spend more time doing some real work…..



du Preez, L and Carruthers, V. A Complete Guide to the Frogs of Southern Africa. Random House; 2009.

TOSSERS AND JERKS

Thanks to the wonder of the internet I know what they call a person who throws litter out of a car window in the UK. They are called “tossers” and I am continually amazed that people still carry on tossing beer bottles and burning cigarette ends out of cars in South Africa too. Apart from the fundamental stupidity of the action accompanied by the litter and broken glass we also have the risk of bush fires. The prolonged drought (while the rest of the country is experiencing floods) is not helping either.

Over the weekend I was reminded of another type of person we have here. I do not know what they are called in the rest of the world so I have decided to label them “jerks.” I wanted to photograph a cute “penguins crossing the road” sign outside a penguin rehabilitation centre called the South African Marine Rehabilitation and Education Centre in Port Elizabeth. Someone had fired a metal dart similar to a hypodermic syringe needle into the sign using a blow pipe.

Apart from being just a stupid thing to do I am sure that someone like that would think nothing of shooting a dart into a random passing bird or person. The bird would eventually die and the person could lose an eye.

But we have people in South Africa that are even more stupid than this! There are road signs warning of animals crossing the roads all over South Africa. Kudu are especially dangerous at night as the car lights blind them and they try to leap over the car. They tend to hit the car at windscreen height and there are several deaths resulting from this every year.

Amazingly we have gun owners who shoot at these signs and try to hit the drawing of the animal. Obviously these are low intellect people who shouldn’t own firearms and to top it off they are lousy shots as they seldom hit the animal. When they miss the sign they could hit an innocent passer by and I presume that any animal they see is fair game. Maybe something as stupid as this is done when one is drunk?

I really do not like people as stupid as this and I do not know what to say about them except perhaps to use stronger words than tossers and jerks.

Poaching Boom

Rhino poaching is now at a 15 year high according to a report published by the IUCN, WWF and Traffic. In South Africa and Zimbabwe alone, an estimated 69 animals have been killed since January 2009, a rate of 12 animals a month, compared with just 3-4 a month between 2000 and 2005. This spat of poaching is being driven by a soaring demand for illegal horn by traders in Thailand, China and Vietnam. Asian rhinos are also being targetted, with dehorned carcasses being found in India and Nepal. The report was presented to the 58th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Standing Committee this week in Geneva.

Dr Jane Smart, Director of IUCN's Biodiversity Conservation Group said, "Rhino populations in both Africa and Asia are being seriously threatened by poaching and illegal trade. The IUCN and its African and Asian Rhino Specialist Groups are working hard to gather data and information on rhinos so that CITES parties can make informed decisions and ensure that rhinos are still here for generations to come."

A selection of images on rhinos can be found at this URL:
http://www.ecoscene2.captureweb.co.uk/lbshow.php?lightboxid=855668327452