Eagle encounters

Warren, Tim and I spent the most wonderful couple of hours up at the Black Eagle nest site in Silvermine yesterday.

I had heard from Lucia Rodrigues that there had been ‘nest prep’ activity on the go, so I was keen to check it out for myself.

This is one energetic pair! Just three months ago they were encouraging their 2012 offspring to head off into the sunset and make its own way in the world….and here they were very proactively getting their heads and hearts around creating a new little eagle life.

Within 10 minutes of sitting still on our precipitous rocky perch we were rewarded with our first sighting – on exquisitely silent, powerful wings, the female cruised past us, tucked her wings back and ducked into her nest below. The male followed a little while later. They then did several spectacular, very close aerobatic fly pasts, turning their heads to watch us each time.

They moved between the nest and a cliff ledge to the far right of us. The female gathered twigs and bits of greenery in her beak and took it to her nest where she then spent time stomping, arranging and earnestly contemplating the layout.

After a long flight together out of sight and off towards Noordhoek, they returned and we watched them land on the same ledge….hop towards one another and start to mate!
It was quite amazing to watch such rare and enormous birds in the act of producing another…

We left the mountain well after 6 in the evening as the tops of the mountain began to turn pink and the warm pockets of air started to take on the evening chill.
The whole way down we kept exclaiming how lucky we were and how rare a thing we had just been privy to. It really was quite something.

We’ll be watching these extraordinary animals in the coming months with great interest.

a perfect place

I have just spent a very privileged weekend in the back of beyond, enjoying time playing in the foothills of yet another unique Cape mountain range not too far from the concrete jungle.
‘Home’ was a little two-roomed cottage tucked away, up a dusty road, through a creaking farm gate or three.

Our playground? Beautiful rolling Fynbos and Renosterveld-clad mountains that go on forever. Big wide coffee skies with star sprinkles cradling a massive moon – her deep craters brought alive by a long so-close-you-can-touch-the-surface camera lens.

We sat on the stoep in the evenings and took it all in. The stillness and the intoxication of being in a place where you cannot hear (or smell) a single ounce of homo-sapien-ness…

Every inch of me craves this kind of silence.

I breathe it in and hold it there, eyes closed….trying to capture it, to mentally bottle it and sip on it when next I find myself in a thrumming, sense-sapping mall, or having to endure the shrieking neighbor-hood kids and barking dogs…

And then the night-jar pipes up with her ‘Good-Lord-Deliver-Us’ and her mate calls back further down the valley and they continue with their heart-wrenching sing-song, until you see and hear a flutter of white and their calls echo further up the kloof. And then they’re gone.

And then the bats start their rustle, shuffle and twitter in the reed ceiling above and then they flit about in a very ordered frenzy, and we feel them rush over our heads and past our faces – almost touching, nanometers away from our noses.
We see a fleeting, perfect silhouette of one against the light – big, beautiful, template-perfect bat wings.

One evening I scan the pinky-orange-tinged mountain with my binoculars as the sun sinks away (reluctantly almost). I am hungry for a blurr of spots, the flick of a dark tipped tail, the whisper of a feline presence. The optimist in me believes that if I scan the mountainside for long enough, I will see a leopard in these mountains.

These are leopard friendly farmers after all.

We don’t see leopard, but we see a big old creaking giant of a leopard tortoise – quite possibly a septuagenarian.
I come across him grazing in the road as I cycle quietly up to him. He grazes so loudly I almost hear him before I see him! He stops, munches a little more with his beaky mouth, casts a lazy look at me and lumbers off, his massive, ancient, knobbly, distorted legs hauling his humpy-lump cargo – back into the bush.
What stories he could tell!

We hike in the foothills one morning… Destination: Waterfall.

Once out of the shaded poplar and oak groves, we hit the sudden intensity and heat of the mountain and begin our ascent…..
The air is heat heavy and deliciously aromatic. The grass is crisp and the ground thirsty and crackled. Thick papery leaves curl and shuffle in the wind, making one glance hastily sideways as you pass – always on the alert for sun-seeking serpents.

The red aloes are bountiful – all over the mountain, with their inward-curling apologetic leaves. Delicate pink and green-fringed succulents tough it out with all manner of other glorious plump painted fat plants with spots, dots and splashes and exquisite symmetry.
Tough customers these… they can take all the heat, drought and wind thrown at them. Yet still be so flawless and beautiful.

We hike for over two hours, every now and again putting on brakes as we descend into the valley and criss-cross a bubbling stream. Each time we cross, we teeter on rocks, slip-slide on logs and hover on leg-scratching dried up flood debris to stop and scoop up great handfuls of pure, sweet, delicious mountain water.

Into our mouths and over our heads. We cannot get enough of it.

We scramble and claw our way up the riverbed and reach our destination at the end of a shaded moist smelling kloof…this must be it?! The path has gone?

It’s all modest-cool-moss-shrouded-rock with a tall glassy splash of water in the corner and a dark mysterious bewitched little pool at the base. Curly ferns and cool-as-cucumber waving arum lilies… a welcome contrast to the crackle-simmer heat intensity outside.
I dip my toes in the icy pool and opt not to swim…leaving the frigid liquid to the zip-zapping water-boatmen and other dark wriggly creatures within.

On the way back down we come across black-shoe-polish-shine beetles scuttling about between hot rocks and quivering stalks…they’re all going somewhere. For something. Only they know where.

We stop to watch a large termite colony. Every single team member has a job to do and with military precision, they just get the hell on with it. There is not a second of down time. It’s all feeler-frenzy and ant energy bristling. Massive strips of grass, heavy seeds, five-times-your-body-size-restio stalks….all of it hauled along the rocky pathway into a tiny hole. The optimism and energy is infectious. Where one ant enthusiastically takes on too much and dumps it as it scurries feverishly onwards, another will follow and whip it up and carry it down. No questions asked.

We watch a Black Eagle pair thermalling high above us. In perfect unison, they tuck their wings back and zoom down to a ridge below us. They holler and tease and take on a pair of uptight Jackal Buzzards who screech and dive-bomb…..and then move back on upwards together.
Un-phased. Unruffled. Effortlessly superior in every way.

Over a late lunch we watch a family of striped field mice scuttle about under the tangled bush beneath our stoep. We sit silent and still and see life unfold in this tiny patch of mountain.

Birds, mice, lizards – all sensing no movement or threat above, begin to trust, inch closer and just be in their moment.

We watch it all unfold and the stories tell themselves.

It is a perfect place to be.

Enchanted

I have just started reading a real classic to Tim. I remember reading Durrell’s ‘My family and other animals’ as a child and being completely hypnotized by tales of his freewheeling naturalist adventures on the (then) relatively pristine Greek island of Corfu.

I had forgotten how well he writes and how he brings the natural world alive. Squeezing generous blobs of language onto a palette, he uses exquisitely bold brush strokes to create vibrant and poetic images.

My mouth waters when I read his prose.

I just want to crawl into the page and join him in those tantalizing, shaded olive groves, to lie on my belly surrounded by velvet crocuses and marigolds, use grassy stalks to tickle moss-encrusted trapdoor spider homes….. and to meet all the fabulous winged, four-legged and two-legged creatures he comes across on his daily wanderings.

In his first few months on the island, the 10-year-old Gerald becomes completely fixated with all the small stuff – the lady-birds, the ants, egg-laying earwigs and rose-beetles.

One gets such a real sense of the intoxicating, deafening, buzzing, cicada-drenched Corfu air.

I couldn’t resist sharing some of these beautiful lines with you…

‘Among the thick, silky petals of each rose bloom lived tiny, crab-like spiders that scuttled sideways when disturbed. Their small, translucent bodies were coloured to match the flowers they inhabited…on the rose-stems, encrusted with green flies, lady-birds moved like newly painted toys; lady-birds pale red with large black spots; lady-birds apple red with brown spots; lady-birds orange with grey and black freckles. Rotund and amiable, they prowled and fed among the anaemic flocks of greenfly. Carpenter bees, like furry electric-blue bears zigzagged among the flowers, growling flatly and busily. Humming bird hawk-moths, sleek and neat, whipped up and down the paths with a fussy efficiency, pausing occasionally on speed-misty wings to lower long, slender proboscis into a bloom. . ..there came from the olive-groves outside the fuscia hedge the incessant shimmering cries of the cicadas…’

And then he writes of the coming of Spring…

‘Waxy yellow crocuses appeared in great clusters, bubbling out among the tree-roots and tumbling down the banks. Under the myrtles, the grape-hyacinths lifted buds like magenta sugar drops and the gloom of the oak thickets was filled with the dim smoke of a thousand blue day-irises. Anemones, delicate and easily wind-bruised, lifted ivory flowers the petals of which seemed to have been dipped in wine….It was no half-hearted spring this: the whole island vibrated with it as though a great, ringing chord had been struck. It was apparent in the gleam of flower petals, the flash of bird wings and the sparkle in the dark, liquid eyes of the peasant girls…’

What a perfectly magical, rich childhood.

How sad it is that so many of the children (spawned by my generation) will never have the chance to roam freely, safely and alone all day exploring hidden valleys, mountains and beaches, collecting beetles, grubs and grasshoppers and striking up unlikely and lasting friendships with quirky, eccentric (but harmless) two-legged strangers…

Gerald Durrell passed away in 1995.
What a man…and what a life.

I am inspired to share these images of three spectacular little creatures we came across on our last adventure out of town – all three of them as beautifully crafted as Durrell’s words.

A few changes

Thought it was time to change my blog header and a few other details herein. These days I really cannot call myself a trail runner – and most certainly not an ultra-distance one. I have traded in my running shoes for a trusty two-wheeled steed and starting to love the freedom, speed and endorphin rush that this brings. I still look at trail runners with huge longing and envy, but know that this is not to be for a good while.

I think I have finally made peace with this fact….but RunningWild can stay as it is for now

At least I still get to spend vast chunks of time sucking in lungfulls of mountain air, watching the sugarbirds flirting with blushing proteas and taking in some of the most spectacular and unique views in the world from lofty heights.

Onto more sedate and less cardiovascular pursuits…I have been dabbling in coloured pencil work again and yesterday spent about an hour on this juvenile martial eagle. There is plenty of room for improvement (I know) but I am really looking forward to playing with all the marvellous textures and colours (of all the faunal and floral subjects) on this wonderful continent. And how lucky am I to have Fynbos as my chief inspiration and canvass?

On the backs of giants

On our recent holiday we made a spontaneous decision to try an African elephant back safari. It is something I have never considered doing, the purist in me always dismissing the idea. Surely training such a sentient being for this form of tourism would be wrong? I know I am not alone in feeling this way. Many people balk at the concept of taming these glorious wild animals – holding onto the (perhaps outdated?) image of them roaming free across an endless African grassland.

My mindset shifted and my interest was piqued when chatting to a highly respected conservationist recently who firmly believes in the concept in Africa and is convinced that it has enormous conservation value. And as I have come to realise in recent decades…if wildlife has any hope of survival on this volatile continent of ours, it has to pay its way…

So with such an educated thumbs-up, I decided that it would be something well worth trying. More than anything, I really wanted to expose my son to what promised to be a life-changing experience.

And that it was.

The short 40-minute ride itself was remarkable enough. Tim sat astride one of the young massive males Mukwa (with his handler, Prince) and my husband and I rode on Duma together with our superb, gentle and informative guide and handler Elliot. There are no bridle-like contraptions, saddles or blankets to cushion the ride or upset the animals. The handlers use reward, voice commands, trust and respect. No breaking of spirits here.

For the three of us though, the most exceptional part of the experience was after the ride when we were given the opportunity to walk through the bush alongside the three beautiful beasts.

We were quite literally rubbing shoulders with them while they wrapped their trunks around thorn-encrusted branches, closed their Bette Davis eyelashes in slow soporific delight as they munched on bark, flicked large clumps of grass against the upper part of their trunk to get rid of the soil before shovelling it into their mouths, defecated at our feet and ambled along softly (yet with astounding efficiency and speed).

I held my breath through it all standing right next to Duma…when touching the moist hairy tips of his huffing, sniffing prehensile trunk, when smelling and feeling his warm explorative breath on my cheek, feeling his coarse tail hair, running my fingers over his toenails and the soft spongy looking skin under his massive feet, tucking my hand under his wrinkled armpit and feeling the baby-bottom soft, warm skin.

Then to stand right infront of him and look into his eyes and have him look right into mine…. knowing what I know about what we are doing to his relatives (and their habitat) elsewhere on this continent – and wondering what this great beast could see and read in my mind.

It was nothing short of mind-blowing.

We also had a chance to feed them, which gave my son yet another unique opportunity to gaze right into an elephant’s mouth, to see his tongue, his massive mincing molars and awesome gaping throat. What a rare privilege – particularly for a young child!

All these pictures speak for themselves (thanks Warren).

Though the one at the very bottom of this post is particularly poignant, I think…

George Monbiot recently reflected and wrote about a very real environmental crisis (and one which I alluded to in my previous blog). That is the removal of children from the natural world. Despite the research that shows the great majority of people do wish to see our ailing planet protected – very few, claims Monbiot, are really prepared to take action. The young people we all hope will stand up and fight to protect the natural world – are sadly having less and less to do with it.

Monbiot’s words resonate for me – particularly after an experience such as this.

I strongly believe that a rare and deeply moving opportunity such as this should be taken where possible/affordable. Exposure at this level cannot fail to move a person – young or old.

And we really NEED young people to be moved enough to effect change or to dedicate their lives to the protection of our very precious wild creatures – and their habitat. Now more than ever.

‘There is no substitute for what takes place outdoors; not least because the greatest joys of nature are unscripted. The thought that most of our children will never swim among phosphorescent plankton at night, will never be startled by a salmon leaping, a dolphin breaching, the stoop of a peregrine, or the rustle of a grass snake is almost as sad as the thought that their children might not have the opportunity.

Most of those I know who fight for nature are people who spent their childhoods immersed in it. Without a feel for the texture and function of the natural world, without an intensity of engagement almost impossible in the absence of early experience, people will not devote their lives to its protection.’ [Monbiot, 2012]

(For more on this truly excellent outfit based in the Zuurberg mountains, visit Addo Elephant Back Safaris: (http://www.addoelephantbacksafaris.co.za/).

Wild creations

Happy 2013 to you all!

We have just returned from a wonderful time away exploring a few hidden (and relatively untouched) corners of this amazingly beautiful, diverse and surprising country.

I am going to kick-start this blogging year with some reflections on how some of these forays into these wild and woolly places brought on a remarkable change in our nine-year-old. His creative juices seemed to flow uncensored; he relaxed, seemed happier and made the most beautiful things.

We spent time swimming and canoeing in rivers, hiking on beaches, splashing in the warm Indian Ocean, sloshing about in thick river mud, watching clicking crabs and slurping prawns out of their murky depths, exploring the leafy, damp depths of thick coastal and riverine forests and swinging high within and between the vast creaking arms of ancient trees.

We rode horses (without conventional bridles and bits). We also rode and walked alongside African elephants. We met some amazing people who have a deep love and respect for these animals and who work with them in a way that uses the power of intention and a deep understanding of their instinctive/natural ways as opposed to cruel force and domination.

We stayed in some remote and rustic places – one or two of them fairly basic and without electricity. Our nights were lit by paraffin lamps, our showers either cold or heated up only by first lighting a fire and revving up a donkey boiler.

The first of Tim’s creations emerged after one of our forest walks in the Wilderness area. Before we knew it, he had fashioned a little forest elf hat out of ferns, stems and twine. This he wore for the rest of the day – much to the gentle amusement of those we passed.

The second came out of a walk along one of those endless windswept Transkei beaches. This time, Tim quietly gathered up a random selection of driftwood sticks. He refused to tell us what he wanted to do with them. A surprise, he said.

That afternoon he sat with his knife and some fishing twine and within about half an hour had created a beautiful bow and arrow – the arrow perfectly whittled at the tip, with a neatly crafted slit at the end to fit the bow.

This was used on our first forest walk in Hogsback…when we were out searching for Hobbits!

At our next destination, and after another long drive, he hauled out his knife and fishing twine and started whittling away at the various bits of the bow and arrow and again – with zero intervention from us, he had fashioned a fascinating musical instrument. A kind of African guitar, which emits two tuneful notes when plucked along its two taut strings.

Our final evening was spent in a glorious Karoo farm, the ancient farm house overlooking the Gamka River with its craggy steep echoing sides. While we sipped our wine and marveled at the warmth of the stoep soaking into our bare feet, the fading sunlight touching the aloes, and the vastness of the sky, Tim vanished into the scrubby Karoo veld.

He returned armed with scraps of iron, rusty wire, a bone, a stone and various other gnarled fingers of farm detritus. He then proceeded to create the most beautiful mobile/wind chime – his bare hands twisting and bending, cheeks puffed out with concentration.

The end result is completely beautiful. It hung on the stoep, the warm Karoo wind making music with it throughout the night. It now hangs on ours at home – a wonderful momento of a beautiful evening.

Later that evening, Tim and I went around the house lighting the paraffin lamps before the darkness seeped under the doors. He then went off to help his father light the fire under the donkey boiler.  No electric switches, no television, no ipad, no cell phone. None of these hideous modern imagination slayers. These sensory thieves.

That night we all sat together and soaked it all in….the crackle of twigs, the smell of wood smoke, the fading distant chirrup of the kingfishers in the valley below, the hadedas cackling as they winged their way to bed, the crickets humming and the jackals calling to one another.

All of them telling stories – the subplots of which we humans could never fathom.

This degree of creativity, independence and contentment is a fairly rare commodity at home with this little boy. I am not sure what it points to. But I imagine it has a lot to do with a “tuning out” – a shutting out the noise that is “civilised”, modern fast-paced and pressurised life.

There really is much to be said for spending more time in remote places. Especially for children. To be in places where one is forced to really fine tune all five senses; to become aware of what it takes to generate light and warmth; to invent, create and to really look and be in awe of the natural world.

In blogs to follow, I will share more on the extraordinary rivers and indigenous forests and the creatures we heard and saw. I also want to share the mind blowing interaction with three truly magnificent elephants…

Sweating the small stuff

It’s nightfall in Noordhoek. Angry black storm clouds shunt over the mountain and then clear temporarily to reveal a perfectly plump, full moon.

Right now, the rain is coming down in sheets and that’s my cue to get togged up in a bright reflective rain-suit and head out into the busy rush hour traffic.

I plug a cable into the cigarette lighter, fasten the revolving amber warning light onto the roof, slap two big magnetic decals onto the side and back of my vehicle, toss my clipboard, egg-flip and torches into the passenger seat and set off.

At an agonizingly slow 40 kms an hour, I cruise up and down Silvermine and Main Roads, wiper blades swishing and hazard lights flickering.

My eyes are peeled to the slick, shiny tarmac.

I do this for three hours. Fellow volunteer patrollers will be out scouring a different stretch of road, and a fresh pair of eyes will arrive to relieve me and scour my beat later in the evening.

And then I see one.

A female Western Leopard Toad on the verge, facing the opposite side about to make her perilous way across the road. She’s massive – you cannot miss her bright, shiny form against the dark road. I quickly move to the side of the road, stop the car, flash a torch up and down in the direction of the animal to warn speedy home-comers and dash across the road to pick her up and move her over.

This can happen up to 20 times on a single patrol.

I am very often just too late. On one particular patrol I had to move (and record) as many as ten dead animals with the (rather undignified) egg-flip. This is done purely for statistical reasons. It is the most heartbreaking aspect of the evening. So often it is a matter of seconds – skip a beat, and you reach the shiny twitching mess in the wake of an uncaring motorist.

These days, the endemic Western Leopard Toad (Amietophrynus pantherinus) is restricted to small areas of the Overberg and a few isolated pockets in the southern peninsula. As an ‘explosive breeder’ the toad only breeds in a specific window period towards the end of the rainy season. They migrate almost exclusively on wet, rainy nights and more commonly under a full moon.

The urge to breed comes with the overwhelming impulse to move. They face an epic and hazardous journey from gardens to ponds – where mating and egg-laying takes place. Decades back this would have been perfectly hazard free. Today, however, the spaces between breeding ponds are now crisscrossed with electric fences, walls, canals, driveways, swimming pools and worst of all….increasingly busy roads.

The scourge of suburbia and development has resulted in significant decline in populations. Introduced or exotic fauna and flora like domestic ducks, khoi fish and algae also threaten the integrity of breeding habitats.

This is where the patrollers come in. We are there to help the males, females and even amplexis (mating) pairs get from A to B without being pancaked by rubber.

There are many patrols in a single season (up to 430 this year). 2012 was a particularly long one in the southern peninsula, with the toads starting their movement much later than usual and keeping us on our toes well into September.

The 2012 season saw a total of 562 toads saved in the Noordhoek/Sun Valley/Fish Hoek and Clovelly area. Sadly, it also saw about 130 senseless fatalities. On the busiest night of the season, a staggering 101 toads were encountered on the roads – just on the Noordhoek beat!

The Toad NUTS group has been up and running since 2008. Under the leadership of two passionate local residents (Alison Faraday and Suzie J’Kul), the group has grown from strength to strength and has managed to attract an astounding number of loyal, dedicated volunteer patrollers who give up their time and energy every season.

When confronted by the cynics – and there are many about – one is challenged on the degree of dedication, time and effort put into saving one species. Why spend so much energy saving a toad, I am asked – when thousands of people down the road are living in squalor?

Or… why bother? They’re just toads. Sure….and over there, there are ‘just’ wild dogs….or blue swallows…or riverine rabbits. Who gets to choose what is more important – when, let’s face it….choices abound!

Every single species is important and though toads are not everyone’s cup of tea, these little guys are as vital to ecosystem integrity as our infinitely more enigmatic, horned poster child of the day.

For more on what you can do to save this extraordinary species from the cliff edge of extinction, visit http://toadnuts.ning.com/