Crow wears a band of silver

W&N watercolour on Amedeo 200gsm 

With thanks to John from "Midmarsh Jottings" for the use of his beautiful photograph. 

Crow wears a band of silver on his ankle, holds it out to watch it glint in the sun like cool creek water. It is noon. He is the only one out. All others have sought shelter under the canopy of live oak, the leaves beneath the chaparral, Crow the only one among them unafraid to cast a shadow. He is a black body to absorb the sun’s heat, and yet unheated.

He's silver studded with stones, turquoise to match the cloudless sky. He stretches out his leg again, watches sky and water glisten on his ankle.

 He flexes claws and brings his foot beneath him again, stretches out his other, naked foot for balance. His feet are beautiful, furrowed skin like charcoal scales, sharp and onyx claws. As flexible as hands, good for grasping new-hatched thrushes or pulling gate hooks from eye bolts, and sleek. The humans see crow’s feet in the faces of their most seasoned elders, the scars of a learned life spent laughing. Crows’ feet, the mark of craft and cunning, crow’s feet a sense of humor made skin and sinew.

 He swings down on the branch, holds himself upside down and swinging, the silver falling down around his upper leg as he barks in delight. Sky below his feet and swaying, silver pools above his head. The world so beautifully inverted, he cannot keep from laughing. This is beauty: the world turned upside down. You can keep your lithe ingénues, your florid sunsets and cloying sentiment: beauty is all that cleft in two, a cunning spark suspended by crow’s feet, a fall from a deadly height and then the swoop of wing, the thickening of the air beneath splayed feathers. Seeing air rising within air and climbing on it, sun glinting blue-black as night sky off your feathers? Night colours blazing brilliant from your feathers? Beauty is day turned to night and night to day.

Heart beats furious beneath that dark breast, mind burns in onyx eyes. Beauty a glint of laughter in a bottomless dark eye. He barks again.

Sun above live oak, a thousand suns refracted on the earth below. Grasshoppers leap into the air clicking. Wild oats, tawn in the summer heat, lean eastward with the breeze, and a wall of fog on the ocean twenty miles west.

All this beauty: all this.

Story from "Coyote Crossing"

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March inspiration - Pets

"The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself, too." 

~ Samuel Butler

  My companion and life-long friend, Jacko (read Jacko's story HERE.)

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For many of us, our pets mean the whole world to us. For me, a house or an apartment becomes a home when you add one set of four legs, a happy tail, and that indescribable measure of love that we call a dog. I've always subscribed to the creed that the purity of a person's heart can be quickly measured by how they regard animals. Mahatma Gandhi said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." I whole-heartedly agree with that.

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The Pororoca

"It's the tail end of the dry season on the Araguari River in the Brazilian Amazon Basin, and the water level is low. The moon is full. Suddenly an ominous roar rolls through the jungle, like the rumble of an oncoming train. A vast wall of water comes hurtling straight up the river. The native Tupi Indians call it poroc-poroc—big roar."

- National Geographic

 Pic credit - Investec.

I was utterly awed and amazed when I saw a programme on TV regarding the Pororoca, which is a tidal bore, with waves up to 4 metres high, that travel as much as 13km inland upstream on the Amazon River and adjacent rivers. 

When the moon is full and the dry season is coming to an end along the banks of the Araguari River, the stillness of the Amazon is shattered by a loud, thunderous roar. The suddenly rising waters of the river rush out towards the Atlantic, forcing the tide to surge hundreds of kilometres up the Amazon River – it’s not just a tidal bore, it’s an opportunity waiting to be seized… 

 Pic credit - Investec.

Feared and revered by the native Tupi, who call this tidal bore Pororoca, meaning "great destructive noise", the tremendous wave can be powerful enough to tear entire trees from the river bank...and captivating enough to tempt surfers from all over the world, to ride its untamed wall. Occurring between February and March only, it's the longest wave on earth. 

The wave has become popular with surfers. Since 1999, an annual championship has been held in São Domingos do Capim (on the adjacent Guamá River). However, surfing the Pororoca is especially dangerous, as the water contains a significant amount of debris from the shores of the river (often entire trees), in addition to dangerous fauna. In 2003 the Brazilian Picuruta Salazar won the event with a record ride of 12.5 km lasting 37 minutes. The longest time captured on tape riding the wave is also by Picuruta, lasting 43 minutes. 

You can see the pororoca in action HERE.

Do youself a favour and click, it's something not to be missed!

 Pic credit - Investec.

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Nature is telling us...

With the grass turning yellow and a nip in the morning air, it's plain that we're heading for Autumn already. One of our March/April jobs on the smallholding is to cut the grass and make fire-breaks. We started early this year as Nature is clearly indicating she has plans for an early Winter!

Tappeltjie cleaning under the fences with a panga.

After the contractor has finished the basic job of cutting all the fields, it's time for us to trim under the fences and get closer to walls and other structures. Where the tractor cannot be used it is done by hand with a panga.

I just love watching them work and the smell of the freshly-cut grass is like no other in this world!

Following the tractor around, I also get a chance to 'rescue' small wildlife and flowers, giving the driver strict instructions to 'go around' it. This wildflower was blowing around briskly in the breeze and I had to hold it still to get a shot.

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Besides clearing up a possible fire hazard, I'm thrilled by the annual cut as I get to replenish my stock of baled grass for the chicken coop. I really don't use that much so twenty bales lasts me the whole year. The contractor takes the rest of the harvest, which is about 200 bales in total.

By this time of the year, the Fan-tiled Cisticolas (Cisticola juncidis - Landeryklopkloppie in Afrikaans) have finished breeding. They hang their tiny nests in the tall grass by bunching clumps together and building their little cups half-way up the stems. Quite a job to find them in the tall grass and I never actually look for the nests as the Cisticolas are very shy and easily abandon a disturbed nest. I'll miss their constant twittering as they do their dipping flight above the tall grass.

(Pic from Photo.net)

But the shorter grass makes way for other wildlife - the Guinea fowl pass through more often and the Crowned Plovers move in and start choosing nesting sites. It's one of my great joys watching their tiny, long-legged little offspring following the parents around in Winter, taking tit-bits pointed out to them.

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Domino, the Pied Crow

A photograph of Domino on a textured back-ground. 

Location : Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa. 

Camera : Fuji FinePix 2800Zoom 

This is Domino, a Pied Crow (Corvus albus) I was blessed enough to have in my life for a few years. I found him on the ground under a huge Blue gum tree, newly fledged and starving and weak. As it was impossible to return him to his nest, I took him home, prepared a basket with a hot water bottle, gave him a good feeding and waited. It wasn’t long before he was asking for food every hour and within a week he was happily hopping around the house, investigating an exciting new world. 

Crows are renowned for their curiosity, and Domino was no exception. Nothing escaped his watchful eye and his greatest pleasure was ‘stealing’ spoons and anything shiny and then hiding it all over the garden. 

We spent two beautiful years together until, one morning, I found his remains up in the tree in which he slept – he had fallen prey to a Serval (African Wild Cat Caracal serval), one I had been having trouble with for several weeks, catching my chickens at night. My heart was broken, but I am thankful that I have many wonderful memories from our time spent together. 

The Pied Crow is a Southern African bird that belongs to the Corvidae bird family group which includes birds such as Crows, Ravens and is absent only from areas of Somalia and Ethiopia, as well as much of eastern Botswana, the Northern Cape and western Namibia. It has become prolific, as its numbers and range are expanding especially in the Karoo. It often occupies savanna woodland and bushy shrub land, but it is becoming more and more common in farmland, urban and suburban areas.

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i wander through warm thoughts

Every day, mystery and wonder are always there to greet me, one on either side 

The end of summer always makes me nostalgic. Looking forward to Autumn, but also knowing I'm going to miss the warm summer days and the rain. We live in a summer rainfall area and I've never been able to wrap my head around rain in winter. What could be worse than ice cold, WET weather? Only ice cold, wet and snowy weather, I would imagine!

I had this in my garden this summer... another gift. White-browed sparrows visited for the first time in years and then stayed to enjoy the garden.

More visitors to our property - White Storks looking for snacks amongst the tall summer grass. I tried to get closer, but as soon as I started approaching them, they took off.

A surprise in the long grass - Nasturtium seeds probably spread by birds.

A rainbow after an early-morning rain storm.

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SOCIAL SPIDERS (Stegodyphus)

 Part of the large web of Social spiders in my garden

A couple of years ago I watched with amazement as a rather large spider web, stretched between two plants in my garden, evolved into a HUGE, messy mass of webs that contained hundreds of small, rather crab-looking, grey spiders. 

At first I wasn't sure whether I should allow this or not, that corner of my garden started looking like something out of a horror movie, with entire plants being enveloped by huge nests. But after days of observation, I was entranced by the fact that the nest was filled with dozens of spiders and that they seemed quite happy living in such close proximity with one another. When prey lands in the web, a few spiders rush out, overpower and collectively drag it to a nest chamber where they will be joined by other spiders for the feast. The larger the prey, the larger the number of spiders that assist with its capture and removal. It was awesome to watch!

 Social spiders in my garden capturing prey

Upon further investigation, I discovered that they are Stegodyphus, commonly called social spiders, occurring in Africa and South America with 8 species occurring in South Africa. This genus has the typical Eresidae feature and the colour varies from shades of grey to brown with black markings and yellow infusions. 

Most species are solitary except the social Stegodyphus domicola that occurs in most of southern Africa. 

Stegodyphus could in fact have been called the tennis net spider due to its hackle web that is stretched between two points. The hackled appearance is due to the cribellate (teased) silk used. At one end of the web is a small ball-shaped nest attached to the vegetation, about a meter above the ground. In the Western Cape, these webs are found in the Fynbos while in the Bushveld, the Acacia trees are used. However, fences, poles and other structures are also used. 

Pic from BiodiversityExplorer

A new nest is started by as few as two spiders (usually female) that leave their original nest. As the colony increases, the nest is enlarged by successive generations. The nest includes mostly female and young; the latter living in chambers within the nest, much like a block of flats. 

The nest can be used for many years and can house in excess of 100 or even thousands of spiders. Birds often use the silk to line their nests. 

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