Veld fire tragedy

I think this is where the fire came from
(Click to enlarge)

Today we've just had a huge veld fire sweep through our property, defying all fire breaks, being pushed forward by a strong wind and turning the landscape to black charcoal. On the other side of the fence is our neighbour's property with the fire now just behind them.


The Crowned Plover was forlornly screeching for her young, where she had a nest somewhere in the grass in the black area in front of her. Smoke is still rising in various places and the ground is still hot to the touch.
(Click to enlarge)


The Herons making good use of the misfortune, scavenging for dead insects


An abandoned burnt nest


The North side of our property.

Getting into a Lather

SELF-ANOINTING



Self-anointing seems to be triggered by smell or taste. The hedgehog twists and turns, stretching out its tongue to lick foam all over its body. My Hedgie used to sit on my chest, licking my skin until he started frothing at the mouth and then smearing it all over his quills. He would also do the same when he came upon a cigarette but in the grass.



This hedgehog has come across a well-worn leather shoe. After sniffing it for some minutes he is stimulated to self-anoint.

Crows

Coco

I had a Black Crow as a pet for 20 years (Coco was 27 when she died after having a stroke) and I absolutely love these endearing and highly intelligent birds.

Something we can all learn from animals - when I used to take food out to feed her (she ate almost anything under the sun, with a staple diet of minced meat), she would eat her fill, but carry on taking food from me after she was satisfied and dig holes and hide it, to be searched for and dug up later when she was hungry again.

She absolutely loved gardening with me, following in my tracks and plucking out seedlings as fast as I could plant them, leaving a trail behind her, to be discovered by me as I returned to water them all. Her favourite was finding bugs as I dug up the garden, especially cutworms.

She had built up quite a vocabulary and to friends' and visitors' delight, they would be greeted at the front gate with a very convincing Queens English "Hello. Come in" followed by bellowing laughter. She provided hours of entertainment and it was a great loss for me when she died.

The Cape Crow or Black Crow (Corvus capensis) is slightly larger (48-50 cm in length) than the Carrion Crow and is completely black with a slight gloss of purple in the feathers. It has proportionately longer legs, wings and tail too and has a much longer, slimmer bill that seems to be designed for probing into the ground for invertebrates. The head feathers have a coppery-purple gloss and the throat feathers are quite long and fluffed out in some calls and displays.

A group of crows is called a "murder," though this term usually appears in poetry or similar literature rather than ordinary usage.


"Coco" my Black Crow - She used to take this stance and make a ka-ka-ka sound, like the horn of a car. It must be a natural sound of theirs, because I've heard crows in the wild doing the same thing.


Cape Crow (Black Crow)


Common Ravens on the grounds of the Tower of London


Crow in flight


Hooded Crow


Daurian Jackdaws

FARM TALK - Spring Fever, Summer Madness

Spring fever and summer madness happen on a smallholding over-night. The one minute you're still in the grip of ice cold frost and the next minute the first rains have fallen and everything is blossoming and needs to be cut or trimmed, dug over and fertilized and everything hatches or gets born at the same time.

Calves are frolicking in the field and the ducks and geese are busy leading their ducklings and goslings through the garden on a never-ending search for insects and tasty buds (including the newly-planted seedlings in the bed borders!).

The Koi fish are also spawning in the pond and thousands of tadpoles have hatched to the prior songs of their parents, lullabying us to sleep every night - there is no sound like water bubbling over the waterfall and frogs serenading one another at night to put you into a peaceful state of sleep, awaking fresh and raring to go early the next morning.

Dragonflies appear out of nowhere and provided your pond water is healthy and passes their inspection, lay their eggs in the water, and the next generation lives as Naiads (dragonfly nymphs) under the water for the next couple of months until they crawl out of the water onto some tall
plants, shed their nymph bodies and emerge as the spectacular dragonfly, once again claiming their territory as their parents did before them.

 

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--> A mole I caught in the garden was summarily evicted and moved to the other side of the garden wall (I apologise for the poor image quality, but he was very aggressive and just wouldn't stay still to be photographed! And those teeth are enough to scare the pants off anybody!)

--> But now also starts the never-ending fight with the moles, leaving fresh mounds of earth all over your freshly-mowed , immaculate lawn. Our smallholding is totally poison-free, so every home remedy and alternative method for eradicating pests has been tried and tested, from 2L bottles of water lying on the lawn to loud music being pumped down the tunnels to hose pipes filling the tunnels with water (with the assumption that the wet and noisy conditions will be too uncomfortable for them to bear and they will therefore surface on the OTHER side of the wall, out of the garden). Alternatively, one succumbs to the daily mounds of fresh earth, raking them down and all over the lawn as a top soil treatment.

Image credit 

As far as moles are concerned, the Golden Mole is a welcome visitor, as he is carnivorous and eats all the cut worm and other harmful insects, whereas the Rat Mole is the one being chased from pillar to post for his habit of eating the bulbs and roots of everything in his path ... but what a wonderful sight to see a mole surfacing at night, grunting and scratching around under the safe cover of darkness (or so he thought!) until he is swiftly scooped into a bucket (those teeth are lethal!) and released the next morning far away enough to, hopefully, not find his or her way back again (and after much soul-searching and worrying about any possible babies that might be left behind and abandoned, common sense prevailed and hearts were hardened and the thought swept out of our minds in favour of a mole-free garden.)

Snakes are treated with similar love and attention, being caught and released in a far-away, safe environment or, in the case of a Mole snake or Brown House snake, being left to their own devices, as rats can be a big problem on smallholdings with all the food being served up for ducks, geese, chickens, etc.

And so summer, and the life-cycle of a smallholding, starts once again!

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Secretary Birds

'Secretary Bird' watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - Maree©

The Secretary Bird has traditionally been admired in Africa for its striking appearance and ability to deal with pests and snakes. As such it has often not been molested, although this is changing as traditional observances have declined.

The Secretary Bird is the national emblem of Sudan as well as a prominent feature on the Coat of arms of South Africa.

The Secretary Bird is largely terrestrial, hunting its prey on foot, and other than the caracara (such as Polyborus plancus), is the only bird of prey to do so habitually. Adults hunt in pairs and sometimes as loose familial flocks, stalking through the habitat with long strides. Prey consists of insects, small mammals, lizards, snakes, young birds, bird eggs, and sometimes dead animals killed in brush fires. Larger herbivores are not hunted, although there are some reports of Secretary Birds killing young gazelles.

Bedtime

WHERE DO HEDGEHOGS SLEEP?

During the summer, hedgehogs spend he day sleeping in a light, flimsy nest constructed from grass and leaves. They will have a number such nests, and often sleep in the same one for some time before returning to a nest they have used previously.


Hedgehogs are sometimes found asleep outside their nest or even active in daylight, particularly during the autumn or spring when there is less food available at night.

A nest may be slept in at different times by several hedgehogs; they don't seem to mind who originally built it. In the way, the various occupants pick up fleas and other parasites left behind by previous visitors. But it is very unusual to find two fully grown wild hedgehogs sharing the same nest.

When the weather is warm, a hedgehog may not bother to build a nest at all, but will simply lie up under a pile of leaves or a grassy tussock.

Hedgehogs Down Under

A NEW WORLD

Long sea journeys have taken the hedgehog right to the other side of the world, to New Zealand.

From the 1870's onwards, colonists intending to spend the rest of their lives in New Zealand decided that hedgehogs were just what they needed to help them feel at home.


The hedgehogs took to their new country with enthusiasm, and today hedgehogs in New Zealand are probably more numerous than in Britain. But no-one seems to have taken a hedgehog with them when emigrating to Australia or America, so those countries are hedgehog-free zones.

The Story of Hedgie

"Hedgie, the Hedgehog" - watercolour in Moleskine large sketchbook - Maree

Hedgie the African Hedgehog (Atelerix frontalis) came into my life in July 2000, at a time when I felt I couldn’t handle any more responsibilities, (I was already looking after 2 Mountain tortoises and 2 fledgling Laughing Doves, plus 2 baby Guinea fowl) and all I wanted to do was find a safe home for him as quickly as possible, but after the first hour of getting to know him, I’d lost my heart completely!

Hedgie was brought to me after being rescued from some dogs rolling him around the field, presumably quite puzzled at the prickly ball which seemed quite alive, yet yielding not one inch to any prompting or buffeting of any kind.

What attracted him to Bridgette’s garden was the garden light left on at night and under which he could snuffle around for any insects also attracted to the light. And after finding him two or three times in the morning being harassed by the dogs, Bridgette decided it was time for a change of venue for the prickly character who would not even let her catch a glimpse of anything inside the bunch of prickles.

She arrived with him one Sunday afternoon, not sure whether he was still alive or not, as he had not unrolled for quite some time. Cupping him gently in my hands, I took him to the ‘holding pen’, which was a fenced area normally housing the two baby Mountain tortoises that were currently in hibernation inside the house, snug in a box, emerging from time to time for a drink of water and a quick snack before returning to their selective corners. We left Hedgie in peace for a couple of hours and after Bridgette had left, I fetched Hedgie to make sure that he was indeed all right.

After a couple of minutes of gentle coaxing, I was rewarded with a little black nose and black hairy face (juvenile, the hairs later turn white) peering out cautiously, taking in the scene for any possible danger, flipping back into his protective covering at the slightest move. It was not long before he seemed to decide that there did not seem to be any danger and he gently uncurled into his full length, with a soft, warm tummy resting in the palm of my hand. My movements had to be gentle and slow, as he was startled very easily.

After making sure that he was in quite good health, I offered him some bread and milk (for lack of having anything else to possibly give him at such short notice, as it was in the middle of winter and insects were decidedly in short supply). He lapped at the milk quite thirstily at first and after a while ate quite a bit of the bread. He then acted quite strangely, scrambling madly in my hand and I quickly took him back to the holding pen and put him down gently. He seemed quite agitated, running around for a while and then the reason was obvious – nature had called!

Then came the task of making him a shelter in the one corner of the pond area, filled with dried grass and formed into a hollow in the one corner of the shelter. I gently put him to bed, leaving some more bread and milk and fresh water and decided to check on him later.

Hedgie's home

After dark, I went to fetch Hedgie and saw him investigating his new home, trotting the perimeters in an ever-widening circle, starting in the middle and walking the same route over and over, extending the range every couple of laps, until he had satisfied himself of where the boundaries were. Picking him up carefully (I still got pricked because he rolled into a ball, trapping my fingers inside his soft tummy!), we went into the house, where he spent some time curled up in my lap until he couldn’t resist the temptation anymore and started opening up, peering out slant-eyed, as if I wouldn’t be able to see him if his eyes were closed!

We have now established quite a cozy relationship, with him uncurling at the sound of my voice and peeping out to see the reason for this disturbance and if he’s not willing to be disturbed right at that moment, he does little hops combined with grunting and huffing noises, letting me know in no uncertain terms that this is not the right time for any play.

Hedgie weighing in at 450g, can go as high as 750g

His diet has progressed to canned dog food (his favourite), still the milk and bread occasionally, and any insects I collected from under rocks and bark, him delighting mostly in the large wood lice, which he virtually grabs out of my hand and devours in a flash. I also started breeding meal worms, which turned out to be his total favourite.

Hedgie on the couch

Come summer, and when the threat of veld fires is over, I will try and find a suitable place to release him, and I will surely miss him lying on my lap or crawling up my chest, licking any bare skin he comes across and then, to my utter horror, trying to anoint himself on my smell, prickles scraping bare skin and little claws scratching until I’m forced to return him to my lap or the floor. One thing I know for sure, it will be a great emptiness in my life once he goes.

Hedgie on the step of my Studio

PS : I never did release Hedgie, and he went on to spend 8 beautiful years with me, and sadly passed away last year, 2008, from some bowel obstruction that the vet was unable to treat. But I have been left richer for having him in my life and the memories will last forever.

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Sulphur Crested Cockatoo

"Danny" - my Sulphur Crested Cockatoo, Danny - pencil sketch with watercolour - Maree©

The Sulphur Crested Cockatoo is native to Australia.

The Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Cacatua galerita, is a relatively large white cockatoo found in wooded habitats in Australia and New Guinea. They can be locally very numerous, leading to them sometimes being considered pests. They are very popular in aviculture.

It has a total lengh of 45–55 cm (18–22 in), with the Australian subspecies larger than subspecies from New Guinea and nearby islands. The plumage is overall white, while the underwing and -tail are tinged yellow. The expressive crest is yellow. The bill is black, the legs are grey, and the eye-ring is whitish (east Australia) or light blue (remaining part of range). Males typically have almost black eyes, whereas the females have a more red or brown eye, but this require optimum viewing conditions to be seen.


Their distinctive raucous call can be very loud; it is meant to travel through the forest environments in which they live, including tropical and subtropical rain forests. These birds are naturally curious, as well as very intelligent. They have adapted very well to European settlement in Australia and live in many urban areas.

These birds are very long-lived, and can live upwards of 70 years in captivity,[citation needed] although they only live to about 20–40 years in the wild. They have been known to engage in geophagy, the process of eating clay to detoxify their food. These birds produce a very fine powder to waterproof themselves instead of oil as many other creatures do.

A 2009 study involving an Eleonora Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita eleonora) named Snowball found that Sulphur-crested Cockatoos are capable of synchronizing movements to a musical beat.

In some parts of Australia, the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo can be very numerous, and may cause damage to cereal and fruit crops. Consequently, they are sometimes shot or poisoned as pests. Government permit is required, as they are a protected species under the Australian Commonwealth Law.

They can also be destructive to timber structures such as house planking, garden furniture and trees.


In aviculture
Sulphur-crested Cockatoos may no longer be imported into the United States as a result of the Wild Bird Conservation Act. However, they have been bred in captivity. The potential owner should be aware of the bird's needs, as well as how loud these birds can be and their natural desire to chew wood and other hard and organic materials.


My Cockatoo, Danny


Danny showing off his beauty!

FACT SHEET : "Cocky" Bennet was the oldest Cockatoo on record at 115 years.

Dandelion

"Dandelion" pencil sketch and watercolour - Maree©

We have clumps of the weed Dandelion growing all over our smallholding and it is absolutely fascinating watching the tiny, fine, little white hairy tufts floating off in the wind, to settle somewhere and somehow penetrate the hard ground to bring forth new life. The tiny yellow flowers are a joy, and many insects, including bees and butterflies, seem to enjoy them immensely. And the flowers last a really long time in a tiny vase.

Other names

Taraxacum, foreign dandelion, wild endive, piss-a-bed, lion's tale or tooth as well as pu gong ying.

Description of the herb dandelion

Dandelion is a perennial with a thick tap root. The saw-toothed leaves form a rosette at the base of the plant. Solitary, bright yellow flowers appear from spring to autumn. Ribbed fruits bearing tufts of fine, white hairs follow flowers. Dandelion is well known as a garden weed.

Parts used

The whole plant is used in herbal preparations - the leaves, roots and flowers.

How It Is Used

The leaves and roots of the dandelion, or the whole plant, are used fresh or dried in teas, capsules, or extracts. Dandelion leaves are used in salads or as a cooked green, and the flowers are used to make wine.

Properties

Dandelion is a bitter-sweet, cooling herb that has diuretic, laxative effects. It also stimulates liver function, improves digestion and reduces swelling and inflammation.

It contains sesquiterpene lactones (tetrahydroridentin B and taraxacolide B-D-glucoside), phenolic acid derivative (taraxacoside), triterpenoids (taraxasterol and its derivatives), potassium and insulin.

Safety precautions and warnings

None

Internal use

Dandelion is used internally for gall bladder and urinary disorders, jaundice, cirrhosis of the liver, dyspepsia and constipation, oedema associated with high blood pressure and heart weakness.

The bitter substance in the herb also stimulates digestion.

In Chinese medicine it is used for lung and breast tumours, abscesses as well as hepatitis.

The high content of insulin makes it useful for people with diabetes.

External use

Chronic joint and skin complaints including acne, eczema, psoriasis. It is used in facial steam, as well as face packs. Folklore recommends dandelion poultices for snakebite.

The young leaves may also be boiled as a vegetable, spinach fashion, thoroughly drained, sprinkled with pepper and salt, moistened with soup or butter and served very hot. If considered a little too bitter, use half spinach, but the Dandelion must be partly cooked first in this case, as it takes longer than spinach. As a variation, some grated nutmeg or garlic, a teaspoonful of chopped onion or grated lemon peel can be added to the greens when they are cooked. A simple vegetable soup may also be made with Dandelions.

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