Lockdown Day 84 - Level 3 Day 18 - Now I am not a big Kurt Darren fan but when I went over to Cherie and Graham's home to drop off a package for their daughter Courtney, an Indian Myna flew up and hopped up to me. Cherie introduced Kaptein to me. She told me that Kaptein was rescued by her neighbour and hand reared. Kaptein lives a dangerous life in a land full of cats yet he doesn't stray far from the area.
When I heard what his name was immediately the Kurt Darren song, Kaptein, sprang to mind. I bent over and stuck out my finger to which Kaptein jumped on. After introducing himself to me, he flew to Cherie's to check out her shinny earrings which caught his eye. Ahh my Kaptein, span die seile.
Lockdown Day 22 - It was towards the end of another lock down day and I was busy in my office when Lynda brought to me a dove that had lost it's tail when Tiger pounced on it while the dove was busy stealing food out of the dog's bowl.
The tailless dove needed help, so I put the call out on our community WhatsApp group RNW Conservation, and withing minutes Lisa responded that she could take this poor dove in. So we carefully placed this feisty dove into a shoebox and I rushed the dove over to Lisa who was waiting with her husband.
While I was handing over the poor dove, they were telling me of some of the birds that they rehabilitated and release back into the wild, for example a sterling which now hangs around the neighbourhood, returning back to then every now and then. And then as if on cue, the sterling decided to make an appearance, to welcome the dove to a safe place while its tail feathers regrow.
Every year a pair of swallows come and nest near our patio under the roof overhang. I enjoy sitting on my patio watching the pair swoop low while coming in for a landing. This morning while drinking my morning brew, I saw their little baby join them on flights. Here is the little un with one of the parents resting on the roof.
Arriving at work on this cold Wednesday morning, I noticed this Egyptian Goose high up on this palm tree. Oh she must be nice and safe up there with an awesome view of the surrounds.
This is for the birds, a Monday early morning start sees only me and an Egyptian goose at work this early. I miss my Vespa, which is in the workshop for service and repairs. This is going to be a long week.
This morning I went to the African Bird Fair for a meeting about the Sugarbush Ridge Coalition. It was here in the crowds of all the birdies, that I was introduced to this pair of screaming hungry baby African Masked Weaver chicks. They were rescued when the tree that they were nested in was cut down.
Yay Friday, can a chance to take a walk just to get away from the stressful week. Yay it is over but yet I still feel that it is not over. Just take a walk down into the gorge. On the way back walking through the burnt ridge I stopped our resident spotted thick knee pair. River Song did not even see them as their camouflage is that good even against the black burnt veldt.
I have heard of kingfishers being seen down by the stream below us but now I can confirm that they are here as I saw my first on, a bird on on a wire, as the song goes. With only my cellphone available here is the proof of a Brown hooded Kingfisher sitting on the overhead fibre cable. Sorry little birdie no fish here but if you flutter over next door, they have converted their swimming pool into a koi pond although koi will be too big for you.
I just sat down after a very quiet day at work, when I received the call. I can't write much about the why because not jeopardising a police investigation but I found myself with many others walking the veldt as the light of the day disappeared.
We came quite close to the Black Eagles nest below us and they were no doubt disturbed by us. They flew around us a few times before realising that we weren't coming near their nest and settling down for the night.
It was a very sad reason why I found myself here in the low light, but I just had to stop to take a short video of the Black eagles as they kept a close eye on us. The correct name for them are the Verreaux eagles but they are more commonly known as Black eagles. In Afrikaans they are called the Witkruisarend or roughly translated the White Cross eagle due to their white markings on their backs in the shape of a while cross.
So in the low light of Saturday evening, I just sadly stood, frozen as the eagles came very close and continued to watch as the eagles majestically soared on the thermals at eye level to me with every turn a white cross flashed in the light. The hope just rose up in me, that no matter what the outcome God is in control.
Still trying to recover from my man-flu, I heard the distinct tat tat tat sound coming from the garden. Ahh a woodpecker from space. Now for those who remember that 1 hit disaster of a song from the 80s will sadly have that tune stuck in their heads.
Anyway it was good to see that the Cardinal Woodpecker has returned to our garden to feast on some lovely bugs. Or this could be a small Bearded woodpecker, I am not 100% sure but my gut is going with the Cardinal.
Yesterday and today have been rather hard on me and this stress is taking its toll. I arrived back from Pretoria yesterday late morning, tired, hot and bothered only to find the fibre is down since this morning and no one has an answer to when it will be back. Mid afternoon, an SMS arrives from Vumatel to inform us that it would take 10 to 14 hours to rectify as they have to wait for City Power to make the area safe. So what happened to their SLA of 7 hours to repair any damage to the line, uhmmm, Vumatel is like all the others.
Anyway 14 hours came and went, and this morning still no firbe. No fibre means no internet, no work. So I started preparing to go out and work at a place with internet when I got the message that my mom took a turn for the worse. From the sounds of the messages I got, her heart faded, and with hardly any blood pressure, the medical team injected adrenaline and her heart went in the opposite. It is not well.
The fibre finally came back and I started working to get my mind off all my stress but after an hour the power tripped. A whole section of our suburb was out, expecting it to be restored quickly, we were mistaken as we were kept in the dark on what was going on, excuse my pun but it was only about 3ish in the afternoon that we found out that they found the fault and power will be restored between 20h00 to 21h00 as they have to repair a faulty cable. Shortly after 21h00, we received another message that they still working frantically to restore power and it should be back up at 23h00.
In the meanwhile I received a message from my sister that mom is stable. A second vascular operation was scheduled for tomorrow but that has now been postponed until further tests on my mom’s heart can be run. I went to bed.
At about 22h22 I woke to find the lights back on. Yay, so now I can post a photo that I took earlier of the Fairy Iris or Dietes grandiforia, which is flowering in my garden at the moment. I enjoy my garden which calms me a bit, although wine did help this evening. Anyways my garden is a beautiful attraction to butterflies and bees, with plenty of sunbirds and as of this evening a Cardinal Woodpecker came a knocking.
I woke up this morning feeling much better, as my normal was catching up after such a stressful journey down. It was an early start as I had to get to Hayfields Bible Chapel in Pietermaritzburg by the 9:30am family service. I know I am a stickler for the old country Brethren upbringing.
Since the early start, I stopped at Gillitts for coffee. Just turning off the highway at the Hillcrest offramp was like driving into another dimension, white people everywhere. Yes, I hardly saw any white people in Durban. Even the night I arrived at Glenwood, where I was staying following my GPS I was taken into some dodgy areas with prostitutes on every corner and seedy looking potential drug suppliers lurking in the shadows. Arriving in Gillitts, there was joggers and cyclists doing their Sunday normal. It only dawned on me when standing in the queue between a skinny tall blonde haired lady with sparkling white teeth and a hipster sporting his designer beard and spandex cycling shorts. I carefully looked around, I was surrounded by only white people. Toto, I don’t think we are in South Africa any more.
This Assagay, Bothas Hill, Gillitts, and Hillcreast bubble is not normal yet they seem to be living normal. I mean even Assagay is spelt incorrectly, Ass-a-gay, what happened to Assegai the Zulu short spear. So I quickly continued inland towards Pietermaritzburg and while passing Camperdown, I had to pull over to the side of the highway to witness a flock of about 30 yellow billed kites gathering at a termite emergence. I was in awe watching these raptors swooping and catching the tiny flying ants by the wings and eating all in flight. The spectacular flying displays of what could be the bird's version of a sardine run bait ball was mesmerising. What is happening, nothing seems normal in this place. Please pinch me.
I arrived at Hayfields, a little early and there was already a lot of cars in the parking lot so I walk into the main chapel hall and no-one, I saw nobody. I looked outside at all the cars then back inside, what did I miss the rapture? Oh no I don’t want to be left behind as nothing is normal anymore. Then I heard a faint sound coming from the room in the back, after peering in, ahhh how can I forget, breaking of bread with the faithful.
It was good seeing all the old folks and also the young folks that I grew up with, now looking old too. Interesting was today’s sermon by Paul Greeve, oh yes he is looking much older than I remembered, but his wife Dorothy hasn’t aged at all. I must say Dorothy reads my blog, thank you for your kind words today. Anyway I digress, Paul’s message was about what is normal. He used the scripture from Mark 1 verses 1 to 20 about this man living up in the graveyard. He cut himself a lot and was troubled by some bad spirits. When he saw Jesus, he ran to him as begged for help. To cut the story short, Jesus cast out a lot of evil spirits from the man into about 2,000 pigs whom then ran into the sea and killed themselves. Paul was asking what is normal, the troubled man asking for help, or the Jewish pig herders and the Jewish pig owners who then asked Jesus to leave as he caused enough trouble to disturb the normal.
Rabbi be gone. Thy powers brings loss to us. Our ways are not thine. Thou lovest men, we swine.
So what is normal, men sporting designer beards and cycling spandex shorts? Next is I wear speedos, no don’t Google that. Okay now back to normal, here is my best friend Robbie and his brother in law Kevin braaing up in misty Hilton. Nou gaan ons braai as nothing is as normal as it seems.
Oh dear living here in this beautiful home of ours which is situated on the edge of a Protea forest overlooking the deepest gorge in Gauteng, is inadvertently turning me into twitcher. Not that I track down rare birds but the birds, moths, and butterflies come to me and the garden.
This morning a Cape White-Eye came to enjoy the apple that I put out. Wow it is noisy in the garden today with the sounds of all sorts of birds. No such thing as silence of nature, as it roars with life, you just need to open your ears and listen to creation.
Can you see the bird hidden among the rocky ground? Clue: It is slap in the middle of the photo. The Spotted Dikkop or Thick-knee is well camouflaged in the rocky Protea Forest veldt outside my home. There is a breeding pair not far into the trees and I am trying to keep my cats away from the area but I am sure these ground birds will be able to take care of a cat as I once have seen their cousins, the Water Dikkops dive bomb my Italian Greyhounds when they came too near their nest, not to the dogs delight. Okay here are some close-ups of the Dikkop.
These are quite clever little birds, as they tend to try lead you away from their nest, which is usually just a shallow scrape in the sand and their eggs look like tiny pebbles. They are the perfect first line of my perimeter defence of my home as if anything moves in the veldt at night, you hear this shrill ti-ti-ti-ti-tee-tee-teee-teeee. Below is an easier can you spot the pair of spotted dikkops?
Okay it was the first time I ever heard this word "switcheroo" used. It sounded intriguing in the context it was used, the black eagles did a switcheroo. Huh? After getting back home, I just had to look up if this was a real word, sorry Andrew, it is, switcheroo: a sudden, unexpected variation or reversal. It is colloquially used in reference to an act of swapping two objects. Wow switcheroo was even in my spell check. Well you learn a new word every day, thanks Andrew for this new word.
Tomorrow I have another hike down into the kloof to check on the repairs to stop the raw sewerage leaks that have been flowing for quite some time now into the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens. Now my light hiking shoes have not fared well over the years and I did a switcheroo. See what I did there, got my old replaced by a new pair but NOOO that is not quite what switcheroo means.
I had to go to 2 different conservation meetings this afternoon at the Botanical Gardens, with representatives from the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens, Botanical Society of South Africa, Wild Orchids of Southern Africa, Proteadal Conservation Association, and the Black Eagle Project, just to drop names. And it was at the first meeting when I was asking about the Black Eagle pair that are currently nesting at the gardens that the word switcheroo was used by Andrew the chief horticulturist at the Botanical Gardens.
When the Botanical Gardens was established in 1982, there was a pair of Black Eagles nesting near the waterfall. Reports of this female dated way back to early 70s with the males changing 3 times over the years. The latest male showed up in 1999 as a young 4 year old eagle. Last year no eagles nested which was a big let down and then this year the pair of black eagles showed up and started building the nest again but it was only the male building the old nest with the female starting an entire new nest further away from the waterfall. It was only by April that a switcheroo was discovered. A new young female had replaced the old 40 year old female.
Bird on a Wire must be one of my favourite 80s movies or was that in the 90s, oh never mind it was a favourite. I arrive home this afternoon to such a racket, the dogs were barking and the guineafowl were screeching so I went out to investigate only to find this cheeky guineafowl perched up on the fence teasing the dogs to the amusement of the cats, like a bird on a wire.
I put two pears out in the garden for the fruit eating birds this morning, and a Black-collared Barbet family came along to eat out, much to the delight of our cats who watched as mommy and daddy barbet took turns in feeding their youngster some pear. (No birds were harmed in this event)
Busted Maxy! What can I do with a naughty dog? I was doing my rounds filling up the bird feeding trays this morning, a chore I call setting the cat TV when I doubled back and found Maxy, my Italian Greyhound, up on the bird feeding station investigating if there were any yummies for him.
Lying in bed this morning at around 4am drinking some coffee to slowly wake me up, I heard an owl hoo whooing which made me jump out of bed to get all the cats inside. While out in the garden in the my underwear, I could not see how big the owl was, if it imposed any danger to our cats and Italian Greyhounds as it was too dark in the dusk light but I identified 2 owl calls, a large one just above me in the tree and a smaller one coming from the owl box in the corner of our property. Oh please let them be nesting in our garden.
Once it got lighter and I was more suitably dressed I went back out into the garden hoping to see the owls in question and gauge if they would pose a threat to our pets, especially if Eagle Owls grow big enough to take a cat or even an Italian Greyhound sized dog. I could not find any owls, I must have scared them off just from the sight of me in my underwear as surely that would scare just about anyone. But I did find an imposter up in the owl box, a dove who wants to be an owl.
Yip, that time of year again when South Africans take a day off a think about Human Rights or if you like me, spend time with family. Is Human Rights Day a one sided thing where majority of us dwell on the pass sacrifices that brought us our Constitution? It seems like, with news of some groups of the South African people being excluded from the remembrances.
But is it all that cracked up to be when there is still a lot to do to bring no discrimination and equality for all in this country of ours. Nelson Mandela told us that he had discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, "one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended."
We spent some of the day with family and I didn’t take many photos. Don’t ask me why, just didn’t. As I was leaving Robynne and Marko’s home, I saw the wire sculpture of a Hoopoe bird that was bought on Saturday and I quickly took a photo with my cellphone.
The African Hoopoe or as it is called locally the Ngomfi, is a symbol of friendship and South Africa needs to bring back the joy and love for each other. The ngomfi is a harbinger that you will have a visitor or a friend is coming to visit. It is the colour of beer which is why it is associated with celebration, drinking, and eating. We South Africans need to bring back the joy of breaking bread and sharing the umqombothi with even those to whom we discriminate against as we have many more hills to climb together.
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