Category Archives: KwaZuluNatal

Scottburgh Nature Reserve

T.C. Robertson Nature Reserve is situated on the right bank of the Mpambanyoni River close to its mouth into the sparkling Indian Ocean. Part of Scottburgh townlands, it is about 60ha in extent. Established in 1989 and named after should-be-more-famous South African author, ecologist and soil and grassland conservationist Dr. Thomas Chalmers Robertson.

TC Robertson (15 September 1907 – 11 January 1989) was an extraordinarily gifted man – accomplished journalist, gifted raconteur, ardent naturalist from boyhood, war correspondent, and Jan Smuts’s anti-Nazi propagandist during World War II. His most significant work lay in his lifelong mission to save southern Africa’s soil and grasses, and for this he sacrificed any ideas of personal ambition.

TC was widely known during his lifetime as South Africa’s doyen of soil conservation and was regarded by many, including some of the best brains in the world, as a genius. Yet many South Africans today know little or nothing about him. This is partly because he was little concerned with self-promotion and put off writing his autobiography despite many requests to do so. He wrote insatiably, but not about himself. His passion was the land. He was driven by three things: his mission to save the soil, his insatiable quest for knowledge, and his equally insatiable hedonism.

He was of the intrepid, cavaliering stuff of which romantic heroes are made, a born musketeer, and a man with an enormous capacity for friendship. Outspoken, witty and able to hold an audience in the palm of his hand, he was immensely private when it came to his deepest feelings, sorrows, fears and any inadequacies he might have felt; his passion, his total commitment, was for his mission: saving the soil, conserving the land.

No public monument of bronze or stone commemorates his achievements. His epitaph is written in the soil of southern Africa, whispered by the grasses and leaves, murmured by the streams, and engraved indelibly on the hearts of all who knew him; plus in a small evergreen sanctuary on the banks of a subtropical river estuary on the south coast of KwaZulu Natal. Among the great men our country has produced, he was truly one of the greatest.

  • Paraphrased from author Shirley Bell – who wrote his biography, The Happy Warrior: The Story of TC Robertson 2005 ISBN 978-0-620-33255-2

Birds seen on a short visit today 08:30 to 10:30 – Sunbirds, Amethyst, Collared, Olive; Weavers, Eastern Golden, Spectacled, Dark-backed; Mannikins, Bronze, Red-backed; Square-tailed Drongo; Flycatchers, Black, Dusky; Grey Waxbill; Lesser Honeyguide; Barbets, White-eared, Black-collared; Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird; Yellow-bellied Greenbul; Dark-capped Bulbul; Yellow-eyed Canary; Cape White-Eye; Hadeda; Geese, Egyptian, Spur-wing; Blacksmith Lapwing; Hamerkop; Little Egret; Black Sawwing; Black-bellied Starling; Red-capped Robin-Chat; Purple-crested Turaco; Grey-headed Sparrow; Doves, Red-eyed, Tambourine; Speckled Mousebird; Darter; Cape Wagtail; Heard: African Firefinch; Fish Eagle; Natal Spurfowl.

Hadn’t seen a Barringtonia racemosa in a while. They were blooming beautifully.

We ‘all want to preserve nature,’ right? I was the only person there those two hours on a perfect Sunday morning! Even Jess declined, ‘There’s TV to watch, Dad!’ Damn!

One bakkie did drive in and out. The manager, who stopped for a chat. He seems enthusiastic about changes he has brought in the five months he has run the show. Low attendance is a challenge. Next Sunday there’s a flea market, 37 stalls booked.

~~oo0oo~~

Election Prediction 2024

Look for a slight decline in the EFF’s results in the polls.

Driving south on the N2 a coupla days ago, I had a red bakkie right on my tail. Its nostrils were probly touching my exhaust pipe. Soon as I could, I moved over and it roared past, big hurry.
It was an EFF election bakkie, only two weeks left, lots to do.

– like this – saw this one on election day –

A couple of k’s later, hundreds of posters lined the roadside. About a mile of red n yellow EFF election posters won’t be adorning poles on the KZN South Coast this week. They’re Scatterlings of Africa.

– oops –

I think youthful exuberance got the best of the two young guys in the bakkie. Let’s See How Fast This Thing Can Go! Move Over You Old Goat! WHEEE!!

I’m imagining them getting to Izingolweni and the main Mama of the EFF branch yelling, ‘Wadda you mean you don’t know where our posters are!?’

~~oo0oo~~

And today I’m in the queue to vote . .

Caribbean Visitor

I’m murdering these as I find them, but they’re interesting while they’re still alive. Take a look.

Mimosa pudica
Native to the Caribbean and South and Central America, but now a pantropical weed. Found in the Southern United States, South and East Asia, Micronesia, Australia, South and West Africa. Not shade-tolerant, it is primarily found on soils with low nutrient concentrations. Like in the lawn of this Mtwalume beach cottage.

https://videopress.com/v/yQ7JVJNf?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

One of few plants that can ‘move fast.’ Not as fast as insect-eating plants like the Venus Flytrap, but pretty quick. For a plant.

~~oo0oo~~

And – hopefully – some local blossompies:

– Indian Ocean sunrise from my bed –
Aneilema aequinoctiale – Commelina
Commelina benghalensis maybe
– Phaulopsis imbricata –

Phaulopsis imbricata is a shrub native to Southern Africa. A good fodder, the young leaves are eaten as a vegetable and the plant-ash in oil is used for rheumatism in Tanganyika. The flowers have an unpleasant smell. It is filed as near-threatened by the IUCN. It is one of the larval host plants of the butterflies great eggfly, tiny grass blue, brown pansy, soldier pansy and marbled elf.

~~oo0oo~~

Another Visitor

A Red-lipped Herald snake visited this morning. It was enjoying the wet weather I suppose – we had a real downpour last night and this morning. So it was probly out hunting frogs.  This was a little one, about 300mm long, I guess.

A couple days later an even smaller one made its way under the door.  Played dead when he saw me. He also got shipped out to the garden.

Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia The story goes that its presence was first mentioned in the Eastern Cape Herald Newspaper, hence the name.

– hawk moth ? –

This poor fella fluttered in and died. A Forest Brown, maybe?

And an offshore visitor: A juvenile Brown Booby flying and floating just behind the backline. Seen from the deck off my upstairs bedroom three days in a row. A ‘lifer’ for me!

– pic by Harold Moses on flickr –

~~oo0oo~~

Visitors

What’s that bird!? I often wonder before realizing, Ah, It’s The Mongeese. And their mongoslings. The Banded Mongoose band, about 25 strong, that have this coastal cottage garden on their daily route.

A busy bunch of all ages, they twitter and squeak to keep in touch as they rustle and skoffel through the thick undergrowth. Big excitement when they find a snail. They carry it to a wall then hurl it backwards between their back legs to crack the shell against the wall. Usually it takes a few tries before they get a good throw. Sometimes the first sign of their presence is the skoffel, crack! of them hurling a snail against the wall near the door.

If I’m outside and I move, or a biggish bird flies overhead, the big ‘uns will give an alarm call and they’ll all scurry for cover at speed.

~~oo0oo~~

skoffel – like rustle; both are also first names for blokes, dunno why

Visitors? I’m the visitor. They’re residents! With the really cool scientific moniker Mungos mungo. So we’ll have to call one of them Jerry. They’re peaceful in their own colony, but fight fiercely with other gangs. Gang warfare! And how’s this? In the midst of a battle, females may have a quickie with rival males! Whoa! Females: Always multitasking. Fighting, yet still time to think of their genetic diversity! – wikipedia.org

When You Find Yourself . .

. . in times of trouble . .

Like your car is in intensive care for three weeks, having various internal organs replaced – nothing that’ll make it look faster – the best thing you can do is find a Boutique Hotel . . see mine above.

. . with provided chauffered transport to get you around to where you need to be . .

. . with gourmet meals, DSTV n Wifi included, posh outings to pubs n restaurants, all-inclusive in the low-low fee. Even the Willowvale at no extra charge.

The gorgeous hostess more than compensates for the grumpy security guard on duty. Phone me for details.

~~oo0oo~~

Ah, apple is being stingy. You’ll have to play your own vinyl copy of Let it Be by the Beatles.

– Paul McCartney, me n the grumpy security guard were all born to Methodist Mothers Mary – McCartney’s features in the song –

~~oo0oo~~

Legal Again

Procrastination R Us. Eighteen months after my driver’s licence card expired, I was refused a hired car, the first real consequence of the expiry. Plus fines in Hazyview, Mpumalanga and Port Alfred, Eastern Cape. And a stern admonition near Ondangwa in Namibia: ‘You must go back to South Africa and get your new licence and then come back to your holiday in Namibia. You cannot drive like this!’ This prompted me to finally move my butt, but only after meandering back to Durbs via the Namib Naukluft, Upington, Kimberley, Makala National Park south of Kimberley, and the Vrystaat.

And damn! Less than two hours after being dropped off at the gate at Rossburgh by friend Bruce, I was done. Easy and pleasant. All that dodging, delaying and avoiding was unnecessary. And the fine for being so long overdue was . . zero. No fine, no fuss. Only friendliness. One day I’m going to consider giving up my chronic procrastination.

I’m legal again. And my new mugshot is not much worse than the old one, just a lot more forehead.

~~oo0oo~~

Six weeks later I went to collect. Done in twenty minutes. Would have been ten if I’d known by osmosis what the lady told me when I asked after being in the wrong queue for the first ten minutes: ‘You must go to the window.‘

Red: Where I applied – Yellow: ‘The window’
– ‘the window’ –

Xmas at the Cottage

A quiet week in the Soutars’ Mtwalume cottage on the KwaZulu Natal south coast. Tom joined Jess and me for a few days. On xmas day we enjoyed a lovely lunch, expertly sourced by all of us in a supermarket about 25km away. Pre-cooked gammon, me-made veges and Tom-made pasta. Jess probly did pud, but we can’t remember what is was.

– Larry in Ohio called my delayed timer pic “Four Hams” –

My hair is mussed as I’d just come down the chimney – dunno what Tom’s excuse is . .

– Jess took this one, showing more of the lounge – I will get round to that paperwork one day –

~~oo0oo~~

isiMangaliso

Lucky me, Jess chose St Lucia village for a three night getaway with good friend Tarryn for her birthday this year. The beautiful isiMangaliso Wetland Park is nearby, and I thought, ‘Great!’

The word mangaliso means ‘miraculous’ or ‘wondrous’ or ‘amazing’ in isiZulu, and it lives up to its billing. The tiny section I explored this time is marked on the map of the greater park in squiggly yellow: from St Lucia estuary to 20km up the Eastern Shores. I’ve been to many corners of this amazing place since my first visit ca.1965.

Birds I was looking for were White-backed Duck and Southern Banded Snake-Eagle (my main targets, I hadn’t seen them in ages); Also Lesser Moorhen; Rufous-bellied Heron; Pygmy Goose; and I saw all of those. Plus, as a bonus, Half-collared Kingfisher and Green Coucal – now Green Malkoha. I stared at these last two thru my lovely Zeiss binocs and by the time I remembered the camera they’d moved off. I’m still mainly a binocular person, not a photographer! Gazing in awesome wonder rather than recording.

The Samsung phone feature pic is on the vlei loop road, looking west across Ngunuza Vlei towards the setting sun. I turned round where the road went underwater as I wasn’t sure of the depth of the water flowing across the road. Being 2WD, lazy to deflate my tyres, and on my own, I thought best let discretion be the better part of valour! And retracing your steps is a new road anyway – you never cross the same river twice*. On the map, the vlei is south of Mission Rocks. What a joy the frog calls are all over the park after good rains.

I’ll upload pics when I get home – (done) – left my Canon to laptop cable behind! My mighty Canon is a SX620 HS. Lovely pocket camera, tragically ‘discontinued!’

Meanwhile, Gen Z was taking pics of their food. This in Mtunzini, well south of St Lucia.

~~oo0oo~~

Some more birds seen and heard: Livingstone’s Turaco; Tambourine, Red-eyed & Emerald-spotted Doves; Nerina Trogon; Yellow-throated Longclaw; Rufous-naped Lark; Rattlng Cisticola; Red-breasted & Barn Swallow; Black Saw-wing; Jacana; Black Crake; Three-banded Plover; Intermediate Egret; Dabchick (Little Grebe); Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird; Square-tailed Drongo; Hamerkop; Reed Cormorant; Darter; Spurwing & Egyptian Geese; Puffback puffing; Yellow-bellied Greenbul; Black-capped Bulbul; Speckled Mousebird; Orange-breasted & Gorgeous Bush-shrike; African Goshawk; Fish Eagle; Crowned & Trumpeter Hornbills; Burchell’s Coucal; Red-chested Cuckoo; Yellow-billed Kite; Hadeda; European & Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters; Harrier Hawk/Gymnogene; Green-backed Camaroptera; Cape & Pied Wagtails; Crested Guineafowl; Southern Boubou; Water Thick-knee; Brown-hooded & Striped Kingfishers; Wattled Lapwing; Tawny-flanked Prinia; Black-crowned Tchagra;

~~oo0oo~~

For more organised and more frequent trips into Southern Africa’s wild places, see Dewetswild. Dries De Wet recently went to isiMangaliso – he guides photographic safaris. His blogpost on his last visit is what prompted me to look for that duck and that snake-eagle.

*Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher said, ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.’

I Suffered

So Jimmy Buffet died yesterday. This reminded me that I met Aitch in 1985.

Being polite and needing to make small talk I suppose I did tell her about the time we rented a Lincoln Continental in Atlanta. I’m sure I only told her once, or anyway less than a dozen times, but you know how she was. I also told her once that I was not fond of country music, having had my fill in the year I spent in Oklahoma.

So of course, the next trip we go on to a game reserve in Zululand, she’s playing this song full blast on the stereo in my white 1981 Ford Cortina 2.0GL sedan:

Just cos the oke drives a Lincoln Continental!

She played it so often and so loud we both learnt the words and the choon and would belt it out on many a road trip.

he's a cheeseburger eatin', abandoned Sunday meetin'
Brand new country star
He rides around in a Lincoln Continental
No steer horns on his car

I also introduced her to my Mom’s cousin Dapper Dudley Bain who would unfailingly tell you he was born in Harrismith (ca. 1923 I guess) and the sound of turtle doves reminded him of his youth in his Scottish oupa Stewart Bain’s Royal Hotel. He had a pencil-thin moustache, so Aitch would also play:

I better not let Jess see this. She did some line dancing in her day and is prone to playing loud country music on the stereo in my white 2007 Ford Ranger 3l turbodiesel 2WD bakkie on our road trips. Her mother’s genes, I spose. The suffering continues.

~~oo0oo~~

Nselweni Bush Camp

We loved Nselweni Bush Camp on the right bank of the Black Mfolosi river in Mfolosi Game Reserve. Kinda artistic/rustic, but with everything you need; solid walls with canvas ceilings above and a canvas roof over that; a good kitchen good bathroom en-suite. Windows and doors that open WIDE.

Nice and quiet; and full of birdlife while we were there. Some bush pigs visited us nightly, giving us a good closeup look by torchlight. And – we didn’t take pics!

On the riverbed, we watched an ele having a moment . .

  • Birds seen & heard (53 species): Crowned Hornbill; Ground Hornbill; Emerald-spotted Dove; Cape Turtle Dove; Red-eyed Dove; Oriole Black-headed; Nightjar Fiery-necked; Orange-breasted Bush shrike; Gorgeous Bush shrike; White Helmet shrike; Drongo Fork-tailed; Black Flycatcher; Cardinal Woodpecker; Chinspot Batis; Scrub-robin White-browed; Boubou Southern; Water Thick-knee; Greater Honeyguide; Tchagra Black-crowned; Tchagra Brown-crowned; Golden-breasted Bunting; Pied wagtail; Puffback; Crested Francolin; Barbet Black-collared; Red-breasted Swallow; Dideric Cuckoo; Hadeda; Striped Kingfisher; Dark-crowned Bulbul; Thrush Kurrichane; Fiscal Shrike; Cape Glossy Starling; White-backed Vulture; Grey Heron; African Hoopoe; Paradise Flycatcher; Ashy Flycatcher; Pied Crow; White-bellied Sunbird; Little Bee-eater; Lesser-striped Swallow; Guineafowl Helmeted; Guineafowl Crested; African Goshawk; Red-capped Robin-chat; Striped Pipit; Three-banded Plover; Grey-headed Bush shrike; Neddicky; Wire-tailed Swallow; Stonechat;
  • Elephant; Zebra; Impala; Bush pig; Nyala; Giraffe; Buffalo; Wildebeast; Warthog; Rhino square-lip; Waterbuck; Bushbuck; Baboon
  • Heard at night: Lion; Hyena; Bushbaby thicktail; Hippo

~~oo0oo~~

An early adoption of solar energy with batteries is now derelict – lead acid batteries short shelflife! Godd to see the thinking, and hopefully new renewable energy sources are being investigated in all our parks?

Think of this and be optimistic:

Fighting Fit


Original Message Sent: Monday, July 22, 2013 Subject: Doctors!

I should get my money back! My doc told me the same thing today he’s told me for the last fifteen / twenty years:

  1. Your ‘annual’ checkup? Good, cos your last visit was three years ago.
  2. You’re fat and unfit.

And for this I must pay him?

Also, the thing is, he's wrong! Fat compared to who? and Unfit for what?

Doesn't trust me, either, the skinny endurance athlete bugger. He asked for my weight and I said 80kg, and my waist and I said 88cm. So he stared at me and insisted on measuring, wasting my time and his; then announced triumphantly: "92kg and 112cm!"

What kind of doc does that? Hurt my feelings, sort-of. And also, I wonder when he last had his tape measure re-calibrated?
'Friend' Bruce wrote: 
The older you get, 
The tougher it is to lose weight, 
Because by then,
Your body and your fat 
Have become really good friends.

What? Is he trying to make me feel better? Or older?

~~oo0oo~~

Progress! Today, eight years later, I measured again with my Stanley metal measuring tape in the garage. Only 108cm. That’s actually 107 cos the metal kinks.

No need for a checkup! Think of the money I saved.

Update 2023: Just been yet again. The verdict, a clean bill of health. Immaculate. Never seen anything better in all my years of practice, said skinny Dr Steve. I paraphrase.

Highest Waterfall

Angel Falls in Venezuela

Unfortunately the National Geographic journalist, the first journalist to reach the falls, fell prey to the temptation of sensationalism. None was needed: Angel Falls is sensational enough as it is! She should have said: Angel Falls has the highest single drop of any known waterfall, and has the MOST amazing setting, plunging from a free-standing mountain rising above a green tropical landscape, making it way more spectacular than most high falls which are often hard to photograph.

Instead, she decided to measure the height from the lip of the falls to the river two kilometres away downstream, after cataracts and even some flowing river, including all those in her overall height. This meant the ‘drop’ was over a horizontal stretch of three km, not vertical. Hardly what we think of as a ‘waterfall.’

Silly to do that, as if you measured the Tugela Falls in the Drakensberg that way, it’s actually higher! It has a tremendous single drop and five distinct free-leaping falls.

Both these magnificent falls have great vantage points from which to see their main drops, but let’s compare what really counts:

  • Biggest single drop of Tugela Falls: 411m
  • Biggest single drop of Angel Falls: 738m
– we peer over the escarpment edge to see the Tugela Falls on a climb ca.1999 –

~~oo0oo~~

Remote-control Photography

I got a wifi-enabled camera! My cellphone can now operate the camera remotely! I am going to set it up on a tripod and sit somewhere comfortable and take pictures of unwitting birds. No, man! Feathered ones.

Having this would also have been handy to see what the hyenas and bushpigs were doing outside our hut late at night last time we were in Mfolosi, and I always want to know what’s that snuffling around my tent when camping.

So now I finally have a camera I can set up on a tripod and take pics from my cellphone. Being a cheapskate I waited till I could do it with a cheap camera – a Canon Powershot SX620HS. It’s a tiny little compact camera so I can carry it everywhere in my shirt pocket; the biggest advantage it has over the cellphone camera is 25X optical zoom.

So now I got the camera aiming at the birdbath waiting for the first exciting shot.

Hmm, getting the camera and phone to talk to each other has taken way longer than I thought. While I was sukkeling, two spectacled weavers, a golden-rumped tinker, an olive sunbird, two brown-hooded kingfishers, a fork-tailed drongo and a speckled mousebird hopped on and grinned at me. Now that I’m rigged up, nothing so far!

Ons sal sien what comes of this! Maybe word got out in the bird world that the binocular pervert who always stares at them while they’re bathing now has a camera? This Red-capped Robin-chat showed what she thought of me at the other birdbath. And this was while I was still shooting from long range!

Once I got the setup going, I soon noticed another small problem: My attention span! This is not really a sport for someone who hops from twig to twig and makes frequent forays to the fridge and/or the kettle. One olive sunbird has been spotted and photographed, small and blurry; moving fast and olive-greenish against an olive-greenish backdrop. Meantime various ostriches and vultures might have taken gulps while my attention was elsewhere. I wouldn’t know.

I can see I need auto-shoot with a movement detector so I can leave it and go to sleep and then see what happened in my absence. And so the drive for ever-more expensive equipment starts!

Other challenges: Battery life! After waiting a few hours the whole setup suddenly switches off: “Re-charge Battery” it commands. And mine only operates with wifi – I’ll need bluetooth to be able to do this in the wild, far from wifi.

So whenever you see a great bird picture, take your hat off to the patience, perseverance, skill and equipment required to get those shots!

I now remember the stories Neville Brickell used to tell me about how he got his bird pics. Something along these lines: He would find a spot where his target bird was likely to be. He would give a big bag of the right seed or feed to someone living nearby and ask them to put a handful out every day for a few weeks. He would set up a hide in a good position and place likely perches with good backgrounds. Later he would return, enter the hide and wait. If all went to plan he would get his picture! His resident feeder would be rewarded for that ultimate success so he had a reason to keep up the feeding. A lot of work and patience! Of course, he also sometimes caught birds and photographed them in cages with controlled light and backgrounds.

~~oo0oo~~

I finally started getting a few fun pics – better anyway than I could get with my little camera from my stoep 30m away. And I could play with the images:

– purple-crested turaco –

and I could zoom in:

Once when I was setting up, this Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird landed a metre away and asked What You Doin’? So I shot him right there, free-hand.

Now that I’ve sold my home and am wandering around, I really need to get going on an alternative system. Fingers crossed. One day . .

Update: I picked Lee Ouzman’s brain and our last thought was Get Another Cellphone and let them talk to each other. So for now I think that’s what I’ll do. I’ll need to mount one on my Manfrotto tripod . . .

~~oo0oo~~

Mtwalume Cottage

A quiet time in the cottage. Except when Tommy joined me for a few days! Then there was action, fires, big meals and a much fuller bin bag for the rubbish truck on Wednesday.

~~oo0oo~~

Hey, Rasta! . .

. . What did you catch?

The manne were curious at least, won’t say envious. Tom had caught five fish before the other ten or so anglers on the beach caught their first. Hey, Rasta! What bait are you using? Then they started catching too. And then the fish went off the bite. Tom only caught anther two. All small stone bream, he called them.

Maybe Tom had an advantage though? He had, after all, fished here before, in 2005:

This time he was his own gillie. No smelly fish bait for me.

~~oo0oo~~