Hurricane Sandy and birds

Devestation on the North Coast of South Africa after a storm in 2007

With the whole world watching the progression and now, aftermath, of Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast of America, my thoughts of sorrow and compassion for the people involved turned anxiously to the animals that were caught up in this tragedy. Reading other animal lovers' plight and preparations for the safety of their pets and farm animals, had me feeling thankful that we have hardly ever experienced something similar here in South Africa. We don't get hurricanes and have only had a few small (compared to what the rest of the world suffers) tornadoes. Our last big, scary storm that hit our North Coast was in May 2007, when properties on the beach were severely damaged, but luckily with no loss of life.

I just cannot imagine what it must entail to suffer the loss of animals and pets during such a disaster and what preparation it must take to safe-guard, not just your own family and property, but the animals as well.

It is said that chickens, like birds, can predict the weather. Just last week I saw my hens gathering close together on an overcast, windy day, looking rather disturbed and then being led into the coop by Artemis, the rooster. Shortly after we had a HUGE hailstorm, with hail the size of golf balls, destroying half my garden and even damaging windows and cars. But the chooks were safely ensconced in the coop, obviously knowing what was coming.

Many birders have noticed birds will spend a longer time than normal bathing when a storm is coming. Afterward, they spend a significant time preening. Birds such as the quail, guinea fowl and mousebirds would take long dust baths, as if preparing their feathers for some sort of onslaught.

Many birds were affected by Hurricane Sandy, much like humans, especially those close to the devastated areas. Water birds, and seabirds especially, often show up out of their ocean environment and such was the case with this past week’s storm. A Leach’s Storm Petrel, a bird of the open ocean, was found in downtown Newburyport, where someone retrieved it from Interlocks Salon and Day Spa and a Dovekie, a member of the alcid family of birds, which includes puffins, was found trapped in a cellar!

Because birds are so attuned to shifts in barometric pressure, they can often sense ahead of time when a storm is brewing. Read here how birds stay safe during hurricanes. 

But there’s little question that avian mortality increases during a hurricane, whether due to starvation, exhaustion, habitat destruction, or exposure to pounding rains. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo killed half of the wild parrots in Puerto Rico; a year earlier, Hurricane Gilbert decimated the population of Mexico’s Cozumel thrasher.

But it's important to remember that the long-term effects of hurricanes on birds aren't necessarily negative. Every disturbance event is bad for some species but good for others. For instance, hurricanes create gaps in forests, creating habitat for species that require a brushy understory. Birds blown off course occasionally establish entirely new populations; such events may be responsible for much, if not most, colonization of remote islands by birds. Furthermore, hurricanes have been around for a long time and are part of the system in which birds evolved. It is only when they have impacts on species already pushed to the brink by humans, or if hurricane activity is increased by global climate change, that there is cause for concern.

NASA Goddard Photo Video

My thoughts are with all the victims of this terrible super-storm...

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November gifts - New growth

Although time seems to fly, it never travels faster than one day at a time. This Nature knows. 

Each day is a new opportunity to live your life to the fullest, as Nature does. 

In each waking day, you will find scores of blessings and opportunities for positive change, as Nature does. 

Do not let your TODAY be stolen by the unchangeable past or the indefinite future! Be like Nature and know that today is a new day! 

Each new day brings new growth. this Nature knows. 

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Joy accompanied me that morning

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked. 

 ~ Anais Nin 

It was a beautiful but cold winter’s morning in my garden. The grass was white with frost and as I went outside to open the hen house and let the chickens out, the early morning sun on the leaves of my Acacia karroo tree caught my attention. Such a lovely contrast to Winter's cold! 

Camera: Canon EOS 550D 

Location : My garden, Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa. 

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A Hedgehog in your home

Caring for baby or under-weight Hedgehogs 

 Initially the food should be offered in a dropper or a plastic syringe. Each young hedgehog will need to be fed every few hours.

If you find a baby hedgehog on a summer evening, it is probably perfectly all right and is best left alone. But a hedgehog found wandering around during the day is likely to be ill or, if it's very small, might be a youngster trying to feed and fatten up before the onset of winter. It's unlikely to survive without human help, so you should take it to a vet or try to look after it yourself. 

If you find a nest of baby hedgehogs that are still blind and the mother is nowhere to be found, there is little chance that they will live, but it's obviously worth a try. I never advocate taking wild animals out of their environment so please make absolutely sure that the mother is not around by waiting until dusk to she if she might return. If she's not back by then, it's unlikely that she is anywhere nearby or might have been killed and only then may you try and rear the babies yourself. 

If they are old enough to have brown spines, it's more hopeful, but young hedgehogs are very vulnerable until they are at least 6-8 weeks old. 

The mother's milk is obviously the ideal food: it contains immune proteins which protect the babies against a variety of infections, and nothing can adequately take its place. But a variety of liquid foods may help to keep the youngsters going - give them Complan baby food, sheep's or goat's milk (not cow's milk, which is indigestible to baby hedgehogs.) 

Initially the food should be offered in a dropper or a plastic syringe. Each young hedgehog will need to be fed every few hours.

 When they're old enough they can be fed from a bowl

When they reach three weeks old and weigh about 100g, the babies should be offered a wider variety of food. Crumbled biscuits moistened with milk, bread soaked in gravy and scrambled eggs are all suitable. they can gradually move on to puppy food; two or three tablespoonfuls twice a day should be enough. As they get older - and hungrier! - this can be mixed with table scraps or tinned dog food, which my hedgies absolutely loved! 

But caring for young hedgehogs isn't just a matter of food. Hedgehogs are not well insulated and when their temperature drops , digestion becomes slower, movements slow down and gradually they become colder and less active until they die. Warmth will help to reverse this fatal tendency, but not a sharply-focused heat source such as a lamp. the best idea is a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel and frequently refilled to keep the temperature constant. 

Depending on how many hedgehogs there are, a cage or box about a square meter in area, floored with earth, newspaper or an old carpet, will provide temporary quarters. Remember that the bedding will be need to be changed DAILY. And also be aware that hedgehogs are very good at digging AND climbing! Unless the box has smooth sides, it's a good idea to edge it with something along the top. 

If your young hedgehogs prosper, you can release them into the wild when it reaches the necessary weight, I'd say about 450g, the weight they must reach before it's safe for them to hibernate, otherwise wait until spring before releasing them. 

Most of the info and pics from "Everything You Want To Know about Hedgehogs - Dilys Breese"

It takes dedication and commitment to look after hedgehogs taken out of the wild, so be sure you're up to the task before considering it. 

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Saturday pleasures

“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” 

― E.B. White 

Fresh bread with home-made Apricot jam for breakfast

Hanging a bottle filled with fresh water and Nasturtiums from a tree

Watching a garden ornament gently spinning in the breeze

A nest discovered in the back yard

A basket of Pecan nuts brought over by a friend

My favourite sugar bowl

Wooden ducks on my kitchen table

Late-afternoon visitors to my garden

Snuggling up in my favourite armchair, reading a friend's poetry book while sipping a glass of red

What were your pleasures this Saturday?

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Rural love affair

People take different roads seeking fulfilment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr. 

For thirty seven years I've been having a rural love affair. I grew up in various towns and cities across South Africa, and when my husband and I got married in our late-twenties, we couldn't wait to own our own little piece of rural bliss, somewhere in the country, far from the madding crowd. 

We bought our first smallholding in 1975, starting from scratch on a virgin piece of land covered in lush indigenous grasses and lots of blue gum trees. For twenty seven years we fenced, planted, tended animals, built our house, stables, a cottage and other farm buildings, always busy with some project or another.

And after all this time, I still have not tired of travelling the quiet country roads, spotting wildlife and farm animals en route or stopping to pick some Cosmos or wild flowers for a vase.

Driving up one of the gravel roads in and around our area always fills me with expectation - what will I find over the horison? Neat, green fields? A little stream? Or some antelope crossing the road? I can't remember how many times I've been blessed with some wonderful find, a Hedgehog sprinting for the cover of grass, a Duiker quickly leading it's fawn back to the safety of the trees, a Kestrel sitting on a fence post devouring its prey.

 

And going for a walk takes on a whole different meaning. Walks are filled with all sorts of exciting things - unknown plants that need to be identified, bird song and insects, ground-hog families scurrying about their business, the odd snake hurrying to get out of your way - an artist or photographer's heaven!

But country living is not ALL bliss and joy and certainly has its fair share of draw-backs, like the wildfires we suffer every winter, an essential part of our ecology but still with devastating effects on wildlife and properties. A country property always seems to need more maintenance than suburban properties - fire-breaks that have to be cut, fences that need mending, boreholes that either dry up or need a new pump and all the animals that need tending. 

But its a way of life that, once it gets into your blood, you won't exchange for any other way of living!

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My sedges (Cyperaceae)

 Sedges growing amongst the paving in my garden

I have these beautiful, what I thought was grasses, springing up all over in my bathroom court-yard, but upon trying to identify them, found out that they are sedges. Grasses are characterised by 'nodes' along the stem - or jointed stems - as opposed to 'sedges' which have stems with no joints and which belong to another family. 

As in grasses, the basic unit of the inflorescence in sedges is the spikelet. Within the family there is enormous variation in spikelet and inflorescence structure. The spikelet consists of one to several, tiny, male, female or bisexual flowers, each borne in the axil of a boat-shaped glume (tiny bract) which is coloured in shades of green or brown, red, occasionally white or bright yellow. Mostly petals are absent, but when present, they are concealed within the glume and consist of bristles or scale-like structures. 

 

Distribution

The family comprises about 104 genera and more than 5 000 species world-wide, although estimates of numbers vary greatly due to differing taxonomic concepts of individual researchers and because modern sedge floras are available for only a few countries. The largest genus is Carex with about 2 000 species world-wide, followed by Cyperus with about 550 species. Sedges occur primarily in the tropics and subtropics, but may be locally dominant in some areas like the subarctic regions (tundra). 

In rather arid southern Africa there are roughly 40 genera and 400 species. They are found throughout the region, in particular habitats. Some species e.g. in the genus Tetraria are endemic (occur nowhere else in the world) to the winter rainfall region of the Western Cape, South Africa. 

Ecology

In southern Africa sedges are found mainly in wetlands (some are entirely aquatic) and along watercourses, but also occur in moist grasslands and along forest margins. Some genera (e.g. Tetraria) are common constituents of fynbos vegetation, which generally occurs on impoverished sandstone soils, whereas several species of other genera are pioneers on coastal dune sands. 

It is not surprising that adaptations to particular habitats are many. Many species are deciduous, and survive the unfavourable season as rhizomes, corms or tubers. Several species grow in semi-arid areas, and are able to survive periods of drought due to succulent, water-storing leaf sheaths. In arid areas many species have overcome the problem of temporary moisture (such as in pans) by becoming annuals, completing their life cycles in a month or two. Species occurring in fire-regulated grasslands often have protectively thickened and hardened or fibrous leaf sheaths. 

Sedges are generally wind pollinated, although some of the brightly coloured species are thought to be insect-pollinated. On several occasions I have observed thrips (tiny insects) in the flowers of Fuirena species, absolutely covered in pollen. It is almost certain that, as well as feeding on the pollen, they are also vectors. After disintegration of the spikelet the fruits are mostly dispersed by wind and water, and can also be carried long distances in mud on the feet of migrating birds. Some fruits have corky flotation tissue or further adaptations for water dispersal, some have elaiosomes (an oil-rich appendage on the seed) for ant dispersal, and others are equipped with tiny hooks and bristles for dispersal in the fur and feathers of mammals and birds. 

 

Economic and cultural value

The chief importance of sedges lies in their forming a major natural constituent of wetlands and riverside vegetation, where their densely tangled rhizomes contribute to erosion control and water purification. The consequences once they are eradicated are unfortunately all too easily observed. While on the natural theme, the dense sedge beds that form in swampy regions provide food and shelter for birds, animals and other aquatic life-thus attracting ecotourism. In grasslands, terrestrial game birds (e.g. francolin) feed almost exclusively on the small corms of some Cyperus species. 

Info from PlantzAfrica 

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African Striped Skink

You've got to get out and pray to the sky to appreciate the sunshine! 
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:: African striped skink - Trachylepsis striata  ::

I have a couple of Lizards living in my bathroom court-yard garden and I often find them sunning themselves on the walls or the rocks and tree stumps. These cold-blooded reptiles eat insects such as ants, beetles, larvae and flies, so the ones we get around the house or game lodges are actually very welcome! They also often enter my bathroom, decorating my walls just the way I like it! 

Two wooden lizards decorating my bathroom walls, and invitation for the garden variety to come and visit!

Being cold-blooded means that they don’t have a control mechanism keeping their body temperature constant irrespective of their surroundings. They need the sun to warm their blood and provide them with energy to move and will remain mostly inactive on cold days and may hibernate in winter. There are no poisonous Lizards in southern Africa and South Africa is home to more than 200 lizard species, making it the richest country for lizard diversity in continental Africa. 

 

A sunny position on the wall is greatly prized.

The African striped skink gives birth to live young, but other reptiles lay eggs. The lifespan of lizards is between 1 – 3 years. 

 

This little lady (I think!) looks decidedly pregnant!

My bathroom as seen from the court-yard

 Getting together almost certainly means confrontation! Shortly after I took this photo, the top lizard jumped onto the bottom lizard, sending him (her) scurrying back into the ferns.

 All four my resident lizards catching up on on some early-morning sunbathing. They are actually also keeping an eye on the hosepipe on the ground, where I'm watering the plants, and as soon as I remove they hosepipe they will all be down for a drink. I do have several water bowls in the garden for them and the birds, but they seem to revel in the running water, preferring to drink directly from the ground.

The sun rising over the bathroom court-yard wall.

The court-yard provides lots of cover and a safe haven for them and is also warm enough so that I caught glimpses of them throughout winter.

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Sunday pleasures

“A Sunday well-spent brings a week of content.”

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I was sitting in the garden this morning, having my first cup of coffee, enjoying the sounds around me and watching a Sparrow replenishing last year's nest - he was piling fresh leaves and grass on top of the previous lot and I thought I even saw him doing a few little jumps, as if flattening it in place. "How industrious", I thought, "and even clever, using last year's platform!"

There was even a Weaver close-by, starting on a new nest, which the ladies will shortly be inspecting and, if one finds it to her liking, she'll move straight in, decorating it with feathers and other soft material.

As I was sipping my coffee, relaxed and lost in thought, I heard voices on the other side of the garden wall. I got up and dragged my little ladder closer to the wall and peered over. There was Solly's wife busy doing the dishes just outside their house's door and just a few houses away, Chrissie was busy sweeping her front yard and her daughter was busy hanging up the washing.

After I'd settled back in my chair, picking up my cup of coffee, the above quote came to mind, "A Sunday well spent, brings a week of content", and I thought, "Ne'er a truer word spoken!" I was spending my Sunday exactly the way I wanted, relaxing and enjoying nature, which will hopefully set the mood for the rest of my week!

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The Way of the Crow

"If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows." 

-Rev. Henry Ward Beecher mid 1800's 

Coco on a rock in my garden - watercolour on Visual 200gsm - Maree©

There is little wonder that crows are very often the subjects of legends, folktales, and storytelling traditions around the world, all of which is very deep-seated and arising from myth and folklore thousands of years old. Anyone that has ever spent time with a crow will know how absurd these myths are and that Crows are no more 'evil' or 'dark' as depicted in these legends than a canary in a cage. 

 I make those remarks in light of the life I shared with Coco, a Black Crow (Corvus capensis), over a span of twenty years. She was keen of sight and hearing, and her other senses were no less acute. As was her sense of humour! She loved to mimic men laughing, producing the exact deep resonance of the male voice. She would also have a conversation with herself, changing voices as she went along, which she reproduced from the garden staff talking to one another. 

Another favourite of hers was hooting like a car, getting everyone in the household to go outside to see who has arrived. She would also call someone by their name at the top of her voice, also getting that person rushing outside to see who was calling, then uttering a long, low laugh, as if enjoying the havoc she's causing. 

She loved to play tag, pretending to peck your foot, getting you to chase her around the garden. And of course, one 'myth' that is absolutely true, is a Crow's love for shiny stuff. No tea tray was safe unattended outside, as all the spoons would disappear and any jewellery lying around the house was at great risk! 

A valuable lesson we could all learn from a crow is that they never "stuff" themselves with food. She would only eat until she was satisfied and then take the rest and hide it all over the garden, ready to be picked up at a later stage. 

 It is this kind of sensitivity that makes crows and other corvids legendary birds. 

Coco passed away at the age of 27 after a stroke and I can honestly say no other animal enriched my life like she did. 

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