Country Living in Southern Africa

A very happy 2020 to you. These past few weeks left us in no doubt that we are living out here in the African bush.

As the first rains fell there was a lot of snake and insect movement. The migratory birds, like Woodlands Kingfisher, are back in their full splendour and we even had some huge animals passing through the farm.

There was an elephant in and out of the farm on one border, constantly breaking the fence, creating havoc for our fencing theme. Unfortunately, I have no trailcam-pictures.

Our neighbours were also visited by a lion and there were various rumours of lions roaming through the area. It caused great excitement but seemed to have moved on. I am sharing this picture of its tracks, courtesy of my neighbour, Dominique Nel.

The past few weeks, however, the rainfall has been much less than anticipated. The temperatures were also soaring. Some days measuring 52 degrees Celsius in the sun. My vegetable garden is suffering in this heat and the new grass in the bush is dying again from the lack of rain. We are praying for enough rain to start falling soon.

The fact that it hasn’t rained too much doesn’t seem to bother the birds. We were and are surrounding by breeding birds.

The Village weavers have been breeding like crazy, in some trees I counted roughly 200 nests. We have Paradise Flycatcher nests all over the garden and even had a breeding pair of Racket-tailed Rollers here in camp. Lots of the birds currently have juveniles and they make birding quite interesting if you only see the juvenile without the parents.

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I have identified two new species of bats on my life list. One being the Damara Woolly Bat (correctly identified thanks to the help of John Kinghorn from Untamed birding) and the second one the Mauritian Tomb bat. I currently have 6 of the Mauritian Tomb-bats around my house of which one is a pup.

Talking about pups and youngster.

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My trailcam caught very cute footage of a White-tailed Mongoose and juvenile. You can watch the video here.

We have also seen Kudus, Njalas and a fair amount of snakes over the course of summer. I managed to take this picture of a Kudu bull while driving with my husband on one of his weekend cattle checks.

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This past few weeks, however, were so hot and dry that the biggest thing we have on our minds is rain. Hopefully, the rain will come soon.