Bush Pills

Very short comments and observations

Cool birds

October is usually Harare’s hottest month with a maximum and minimum temperature averages of 29oC and 15oC respectively[1]. Surface water is very scarce so the garden birdbaths surprise you with their visitors.

Among the guests there are a few small birds of prey that are not “regulars” but that come sometimes: the Lizard Buzzard (Kaupifalco monogrammicus) and the Gabar goshawk (Miconisus gabar).

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The Lizard Buzzard standing in the water.

While at the water I noted that they both behaved in a similar fashion. Apart from drinking (the Gabar Goshawk also bathed), both species spent a long time (over thirty minutes two or three times a day on the days observed) standing on the water baths during the hot hours of the day, around midday.

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The Gabar Goshawk standing in the bird bath, having had a bath.

Was it a coincidence or did they find relief by the freshness of the water in their legs?

I subsequently learnt that birds lower their temperatures through a variety of different mechanisms[2]. The bare skin on their legs and feet helps them to dissipate heat. Water birds stand in the water, presumably to enhance the cooling[3]. Some birds such as vultures and storks also use urohidrosis, the habit of urinating/defecating on their bare legs to cool down by evaporative cooling.

It seems likely that both birds were using the water of the bird baths to cool down their legs and feet and in this way, as the water birds, increasing the cooling effect of their bare skin.

Interestingly, since I wrote these observations[4], two more birds of prey had come and both species had stood with their feet in the water: an African cuckoo hawk, (Aviceda cuculoides) and what I believe to be an African Marsh Owl (Asio capensis)[5].

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The more recent observation of the African Cuckoo Hawk (landing on the water) and the African March Owl below. These  4 pictures were taken with a Camera trap.

[1] World Weather Online 2016. Harare Monthly Climate Average, Zimbabwe. Accessed on 10/10/2016. http://www.worldweatheronline.com/harare-weatheraverages/mashonaland-east/zw.aspx

[2] Mayntz, M 2016. How Do Wild Birds Keep Cool in Summer? Accessed on 10/10/2016. http://birding.about.com/od/birdingbasics/a/howbirdskeepcool.htm

[3] Shriner, J 2012. 15 Unusual Ways Some Birds Beat the Heat. Accessed on 10/10/2016. http://www.birdinginformation.com/15-unusualways-some-birds-beat-the-heat/

[4] de Castro J. (2016). Feet bathing as a cooling down mechanism in two species of birds of prey. Biodiversity Observations 7.77: 1–2. URL: http://bo.adu.org.za/content.php?id=270. Published online: 22 October 2016

[5] Identification to be confirmed as the pictures of the owl have been taken with a camera trap late at night.

Spot the beast 12

I was not planning to blog today, Sunday. However, there are no rest days for Nature so I found this creature in the garden and took a picture for you to find it. This time it is not very difficult…

scn9945-copy-2I am sure that you spotted it but, just in case I give you a close-up.

scn9948-copyIt is (I believe) a Red Tail moth (Hypopyra capensis), a common moth of Southern Africa that has a cryptic upperside that blends very well with dead leaves this time of the year.

Its under-wings and abdomen, however, are bright orange-red hence its common name.

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As I try not to handle them, I thought I would not able to show you its underside as it flew away. Luckily it decided to land on the floor of the patio for a while where I could photograph it under direct sunshine and the underside colour can be seen, even from above!

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The larvae of this beautiful large moth of about 70mm wingspan feed on false-thorn (Albizia) and its range goes up to equatorial Africa.[1]

 

[1] Picker, M., Griffiths, C., and Weaving, A. (2004). Field Guide to Insects of South Africa. Struik Nature. pp366.

 

Spot the beast 11

dscn9951-copyI know, this is a difficult one. I give you a closer view below to see if you can spot it…

dscn9951-copy-3Still, all you can see are the two bush tracks joining , dust and trees? What about below?

dscn9951-copy-2You should be able to spot it but here it is:

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A Three-banded lapwing (plover) sitting on its nest and quite well camouflaged. I will expand on this finding on a future post.

 

Curious

A couple of mongooses at what we thought was their burrow inside a termite mound was the first we saw while on a game drive close to Ngweshla pan at Hwange National park.

See what happened next in the slide show and video below.

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An ambitious Hammerkop!

We allowed plants to take over our water reservoir (former swimming pool) hoping that they would slow down the evaporation. Whether water plants do this is probably debatable but they did enable the African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) to multiply really well.

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As the frogs are happy to stay in this small “wetland”, the population reached large numbers and, although they devoured all the guppies placed there for mosquito control, the population has not yet crashed. They are also tolerated as they are rather quiet, unlike other visitors we have had in past years.

Luckily, attracted by the “fast food” on offer at least one (I am not good in identifying individual birds yet…) hammerkop[1] became a frequent customer. It walks around the pool stalking the frogs that it catches them often. It is nice to have these birds in the garden and we hope that some of them will eventually come and nest here as there are a few trees that would be able to hold one of their humongous nests.

On a Sunday in January last, before we went for lunch to a nearby place, a hammerkop arrived. It was late morning and it perched by the pool’s edge with its sights fixed on the water plants, undoubtedly waiting for its prey. We watched it for a while but it did not move so we left it to find its food while we found ours.

Being patient pays.
About to take off after abandoning the toad!
Moving to a better stalking spot!
Itchy while waiting.

After a nice lunch we returned home (for a siesta…) and found the hammerkop still there. It had caught a frog larger than anything I had seen before. It was already dead and the bird was busy “hammering” it against the floor. It seemed that the technique was to break its bones to be able to swallow it and it was really going for it!

Wetting the toad to help swallowing it.
The last attempt at swallowing it, before abandoning it.

We watched the bird “tenderizing” the frog for about one hour until it was totally limp. At that stage the hammerkop attempted to swallow it a couple of times and failed so it decided to wet it and try again but it was still a “mouth full” and it was not able to gobble it up completely so, after swallowing about half, it was forced to expel it out or it would have choked!

Eventually, after wetting it again, the bird had another swallowing attempt that nearly succeed but clearly the frog was larger than its throat so it came back out again. This time the bird, probably fed-up (my interpretation!), just dropped it in the water and left!

I thought that this was a real waste of a meal and, to avoid the toad rotting inside the pool, I fished it out to dispose of it. While getting it I noticed that despite all the hammering the carcass received, the skin was not broken anywhere, an indication that the rather large beak of the hammerkop is not used for piercing and also that it was “all or nothing”!

 

[1] Scopus umbretta

Spot the beasts

While walking in the garden of the Inn in the Vumba in December last year, we came across this sight:

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Here they are, closer:

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They were a swarm of locusts bunched up together. A very striking and interesting find.

As far as I could find out, they are nymphs of the Green Milkweed locusts (Phymateus viridipes).

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A dozen eggs

Luckily it is raining well in Harare. More than we expected so our pool -turned into a water reservoir for a few years now- spilled over and the area became a true wetland! Water was also running from the top of the garden in large rivulets that avoided our dikes and continued unstoppably to the bottom of the garden washing our scarce topsoil. The consequence was that we needed to perform some emergency repairs to our contention dikes.

While digging from the sand the pile that we keep for this kind of work we found a cluster of twelve small eggs! Their shells were flexible so they clearly belonged to a reptile, probably a chameleon.

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Stephen (our caretaker) and I were very excited to find them and went to communicate the good news to my wife as we were sure she would also be happy as I was quite sure them to be chameleon eggs. The news was received only with lukewarm enthusiasm and I was both disappointed and surprised!

It was after a few minutes of thinking that the penny finally dropped so I declared: “I am sure that they are not snake eggs”, trying to convince myself that there were not! “Why not?” was her immediate and rather expected reply. I could not argue so I decided to find out what they were!

I performed a rather thorough check in the Internet and could almost confirm that they were in fact what I thought. However, to keep the peace I agreed to leave them where they were found so that they will continue with their normal development.

Further reading educated me that it takes up to 300 days for chameleon eggs to hatch and the breeders of these animals in captivity start checking for hatching from day 220! So, if you had any hope of learning what came out of the eggs, you will need to wait until next year, if we are lucky to see the newly born emerging from the sand!

Spot the beasts (easy!)

While in Mana Pools last October most game were by the river. During one of our rare inland sorties we came across this sight. It looked rather battered and suffering from the heat as much as we were!

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We also found this little beast at Hippo Pools, also in October.

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And here are the beasts “revealed”:

A fox.

A fox.

 

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A tree frog.

The fox was after this fellow:

An African hare.

An African hare.

And this fellow was after the tree frog!

A green grass snake.

A green grass snake.

The ways of nature!

 

Harare, 15 October 2015.

 

Garden and gadgets

As I mentioned earlier (see: https://bushsnobinafrica.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/drones-in-the-bush/), we did get an improved drone as soon as prices dropped. Although my son immediately managed to fly it, I am still building my confidence after the earlier mishaps! However, as this contraption almost flies by itself, I believe that with a bit of practice I will soon manage. I will report on “droning” in a future post.

In addition to the drone, I have improved on my camera and bought a Nikon Coolpix P600 with a 60X optical zoom. I chose this (in fact my daughter did…) because it is powerful while being quite light. We are already loaded with binoculars to add more weight! Not being a pro, it is good enough to capture what I see although I have always believed that there is no substitute for your eyes! To this I added a tripod and downloaded an App that enables you to take pictures wirelessly using my smartphone.

Going almost beyond my mental capability I also got a camera trap! Its increasing use worldwide has made these affordable so I decided to get one as well to top up my gadget bag that already contains a number of goodies such as UV torch, normal torches, battery boosters for phones, video camera, night vision googles and binoculars.

They both have been a great success so far.

The very day I got the camera trap -brought from the USA by my son- I set it up in the garden and I have done so for a few nights over the last couple of weeks. Although It is not meant to take high resolution images, its pictures are good enough to identify animals, provided that you point it in the right direction!

Through the pictures and videos it took during the day I managed to confirm some of the birds visiting our bird bath and feeding table as well as to detect some new ones. So far we had mourning dove, forked-tailed drongo, dark-capped bulbul, kurrichane thrush, white-browed robin chat, yet unidentified weavers and fire finches, blue waxbill, variable sunbird and purple crested lourie. In addition, leaving the camera overnight confirmed the crepuscular habits of both robin chats and drongos.

A laughing dove.

A laughing dove.

A robin chat and bulbuls.

A robin chat and bulbul.

A pair of variable sunbirds.

A pair of variable sunbirds.

A close-up of a purple-crested lourie.

A close-up of a purple-crested lourie.

I also did some detective work in connection with the unravelling of a garden mystery: the nocturnal disappearance of the bird seed from the feeding table! I managed to expose the culprits that were no others than the suspected African Giant Pouched Rats (Cricetomys sp. Ansorgei). They were already high on the possible culprit list as we had evidence of their presence through large fresh burrows and macadamia nut shells found in the adjacent areas. If you have tried to crack one of these nuts, it will give you an idea of the gnawing power of these animals!

Macadamia nut husks (top) and whole nuts (bottom) to show the way the rats eat them.

Macadamia nut husks (top) and whole nuts (bottom) to show the way the rats eat them.

In addition to finding the somehow expected rats, we came across another animal that came as a surprise as Nature will not disappoint you if you look for new things! One of the nights we were after the bird seed-eating culprits an African civet (Civettictis civetta) came by for a drink! Consulting the Internet I learnt that they do move into urban environment and that they also climb on house roofs!

The African civet drinking.

The African civet drinking.

Having detected the birds and animals present in the garden, it was time to use the tripod and remote control on the Nikon camera and attempt to document some of the visitors with a better resolution. This I am doing at the moment and learning.

Better pictures of the lourie taken with the Nikon camera and remote control device.

Better pictures of the lourie bathing taken with the Nikon camera and remote control device.

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The louries have always been in the garden but always high on the trees. It is only recently that they have decided to come for a dip in the birdbath. The hamerkop comes often to decimate the toad population in our water storage tank (read swimming pool).

The hamerkop taking up position by the pool.

The hamerkop taking up position by the pool.

Stalking toads.

Stalking toads.

Gotcha!

Gotcha!

I need to take advantage of the present dry conditions prevalent in Harare so when the rains come later in the year the animals will disperse.

 

Note: this post has not been checked by my Editor.

 

Added on 5 September 2015: Although I identified the night cat-like visitor as an African civet, subsequent Internet search makes me think that it could in fact have been a genet. I am trying to get another picture to clarify the situation.

Drones in the bush

It was a simultaneous thought shared with my son to the point that our respective e-mails must have crossed somewhere over Africa: “Dad, I think a drone would be great for your blogging activities ” and “Jul, have u heard of photography drones? I think one would be good for safaris”. We were very pleased with ourselves as, at the time, drones were only starting to be used in the bush for animal photography and filming.

A couple of months later when he came to Zimbabwe he brought an economical camera drone with him “Dad, this one is for testing purposes” he said. We immediately got to using it; well he used it and I interfered! Following its fast assembly my son started flying it and mastered it quite quickly (no doubt as a result of having spent long hours playing PlayStation and Xbox instead of doing his homework!). I conveniently refrained from voicing my praise with respect to his mastery, as I had been stern in establishing time limits on computer games, and instead proceeded to watch.

Eventually my turn with the drone came and I received the necessary instructions and began my attempts. At first my flying consisted of starting the rotors and hopping about trying to get the machine to go where I wanted. A couple of batteries later (they last a very short time!) I was awarded my beginner’s brevet. My take off was perfect and I started flying it; which also went well. During one such flight, I was so fascinated with watching the machine that the “Dad, watch where you are flying!” shout from my son took me by surprise, causing me to lose concentration and to remove the crucial finger from the joystick. Needless to say things started to go awry very quickly…

First, the drone turned violently to the right causing me to over-correct in the other direction. Luckily, after the maneuver, the drone still had sufficient altitude but, to my dismay, was hovering directly over a water hazard (read old swimming pool). In the same way that looking down from a balcony causes you to feel a fear-induced (and often paralytic) rush of adrenaline, my fingers stopped obeying my commands and: splash!

The positive outcome from this experience is that I can now confirm that drones float (or at least this plastic one did)! After its recovery my programme for the day was secured: drone disassembly, drying, reassembly and testing. Fortunately it flew again, although with my son once again reinstated as pilot and myself as manager!

Following this experience I have decided to wait for the prices to go down so that I can acquire a more sophisticated one that I can navigate from my phone. It is also my desire for such a drone to possess a “Boomerang/Home” button to bring it back to me (safely) after taking pictures of game. Unfortunately, however, drones are becoming increasingly common now so our “surprise factor” has vanished but, who knows, maybe something interesting can still take place, just be patient…